


Finding Humanity

by MrsEclipse9856



Category: Almost Human, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Almost Human/Star Trek AU, F/M, Female James T. Kirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 62,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsEclipse9856/pseuds/MrsEclipse9856
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two cops, one man and the other man made, learning what it means to try again, stick together and maybe find their humanity. Rating may change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got a new computer and found a rough /rough/ draft of the beginnings of this story on the old laptop. I didn't even realize how much I missed having a weekly dose of Karl Urban and Michael Ealy until I found this. I wasn't sure if I was gonna post it but I decided 'What the hell?' So, after some major editing and rewriting, here we are. The story starts where Almost Human does and the first handful of chapters will be very close to the show (not in the same order since Fox didn't air them the right way anyway) but they taper out into something else. There were so many plot lines left hanging and I want to either ignore them, close them up or answer them. I don't know what my addiction to Star Trek AOS is but gave this story my trekkieness (I don't know if that's a word, don't care). Anyway, enough rambling from me, enjoy.
> 
> http://www.polyvore.com/finding_humanity/collection?id=4853688

“Hey, Scotty,” Leonard McCoy said as he walked into the robotics lab.

“Ah, laddie, as I live and breathe. Or should I say, as you live and breathe? You scared the hell outta the lot of us,” the Scot said with a smile.

Eighteen months ago, Leonard, a San Francisco Police detective, was in an ambush by a terrorist group that killed the rest of his team. After waking up from an almost 17-month coma, he didn’t remember much more than the fact that his partner, Phil Boyce, was killed; his girlfriend, Jocelyn Darnell, left him; and he lost his right leg in the attack and he’s been outfitted with a highly sophisticated prosthetic.

According to the department shrink, he was suffering from depression, mental atrophy, some trauma-onset OCD, a bit of PTSD and the ‘psychological rejection of his synthetic body part.’ Doctor Adams recommended that Leonard ‘should return to duty: never.’ Thankfully, there was someone in his corner in the form of his –and Phil’s- friend, Captain Christopher Pike. The captain pulled for Leonard when everyone else wrote him off, saving his career and maybe even his life. Today was Leonard’s first back to work.

“I’ve been better… also been worse, so I’m not complaining. How ya been?” Leonard asked the friend he hasn’t seen in a while.

“Constantly turning down party invitations. Become quite popular with the lasses,” Scotty deadpanned. “How can I help, ya?”

“I got a rec order for another synthetic,” Leonard told him.

Gotta love the year 2048. After the spike in science and tech brought new drugs and weapons, the crime rate jumped something like 400%. It was ordered that every cop partner up with an android while Leonard was in his coma. He had been partnered with the combat-ready VX like everyone else but they had a bit of a disagreement, which is why Leonard was in Scotty’s lab to begin with.

“He fell? Out of a moving car?” Scotty asked.

“Yeah, crazy, huh?” Leonard said. The detective was not telling his friend that he pushed the damn thing out the door after it questioned him about being spotted in an area with black-market medical clinics. Leonard had enough to worry about. “Must be some kind of software issue. Gonna need a new one.”

“Software?” Scotty gave him a look. “Since we don't have any VXs available, the department's only cleared one other model for active duty. Come on.” The pair walked into the lab’s storeroom. “Funny, actually. This, uh... this unit was scheduled to be transferred to NASA next month to assist in external vehicle repair on the suborbital C.N.A. Space Station. It's sad really. She’s practically just scrap metal. The trimidium circuits in her spinal column are worth more than the whole of her.”

“Wait a minute. That's... that's one of the crazy ones,” Leonard said as he looked at the android that Scotty pulled out of the room and onto a diagnostic table. Long blonde hair, insanely blue eyes, she was beautiful… for a robot.

“What? No. That's rude, lad. They’re not crazy, per se.”

“You know, they had their...”

“What? Problems? Show someone with no problems and I’ll show ya a liar,” Scotty gave him a look. Leonard could admit that the engineer had a point. “Technically, they're perfectly functional. Leonard, this is Jemma.” Scotty checked something on his tablet. “There. Her DF was bad but I fixed it.”

“Anything I need to know?” Leonard asked.

“Well, the GSK series and JTK sub-series were both based on a program called Synthetic Soul. And while she’s not crazy, as you say, there may be some bugs.”

“Bugs? What kind of bugs?”

Scotty sighed, “Some of the GSKs had difficulty dealing with their emotive regulations. Emotional issues. The idea behind both was to make them as human as possible. And the truth is that it's human to have unexpected emotional responses. If, uh, being as close to human was the goal, then, I guess they weren't such a failure after all. People have breaking points, and so do these androids. At least, in theory, there weren’t enough JTKs to be sure.”

“So you're saying she might be a basket case?” Leonard asked.

“No more than the rest of us,” Scotty told him. “There were only a dozen JTKs made before they were pulled from duty. They didn’t really have the problems of their… brothers but the same designers and programmers meant that they got lumped into the whole mess when the GSKs started acting erratically. I think there are only three JTKs still around, including this one.

“Alright, plug it in already. I got to get back on the street,” Leonard resigned himself to his fate. He was stuck with this thing but maybe it would be better than the VXs.

“Please have the honor of waking her up yourself.” Scotty handed him a tool. “Touch it against her left ear.” Leonard did as he was instructed and was rewarded with a gasp.

“How long was I out?” the android asked.

“Uh, four years and three months,” Scotty said.

She gave Scotty a small nod before looking at him. “Detective Leonard McCoy. I'm Jemma… Your record is outstanding.”

“Used to be,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

He chuckled, “Update your files, grab some normal clothes and let's go. Thanks, Scotty.”

“Anytime, laddie.”

* * *

“So, what do I call you?” Jemma asked from the passenger seat.

“Detective,” he told her as he drove.

“Well, Detective, this sure beats repairing thermal insulation tiles on the C.N.A. Space Station.” She looked around, studying everything outside the car, and him when he wasn’t looking. “I was decommissioned four years ago, as you know, so why am I in this car with you?” she asked.

“I'm required to ride with a synthetic,” Leonard told her.

“I really don’t like that term,” his new partner said. Leonard raised an eyebrow, he’s never met an android with preferences. “Saint Christopher. This has to be a gift from someone. Am I right? Something like eighty percent of these are given as gifts.” Jem’s slender hand touching the necklace hanging on his mirror.

“Synthetics are precise,” he said.

“There it is again. _Synthetic_.”

“You just said, ‘Something like eighty percent’."

“The actual statistic is eighty-three point four-two percent but I'm running my colloquialism routine, so I express most data conversationally,” she told him.

“Terrific,” Leonard muttered.

“So, who's ‘J’? Jamie? Jane? Jennifer? Joanne? Jenna? Julia? Jasmine? Jessica? _Jemma_?”

“Okay, that's enough, alright? Um...synthetic off.” Leonard took a deep breath, this thing seriously doesn’t stop talking.

“’Synthetic off.’ Does that mean you want me to be quiet?” Really? He had to have the one robot that he can’t shut up.

“Yeah, whatever the mode is for you to be quiet, just… do that,” he told her.

“Look, I can be quiet if you want. All you have to do is ask.”

“Can you be quiet?” Leonard asked.

“Yes,” she said. Leonard glanced at her a few times during the rest of the drive just waiting for the moment when she’d say something but she didn’t.

When he pulled the car into the precinct, he looked at her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

“Wow, I haven't seen one of those synthetics for years, I don’t think anyone has. It's kinda perfect. Two cops from the scrap heap. This is gonna be even more pathetic than I thought,” Stiles laughed as Leonard and Jemma walked into the bullpen.

“Those are the models that replaced me,” his partner said, looking at the VXs. Tall, black hair, human-like skin but with a greenish tint to it, and full blue and black combat gear. “Intimidating.”

“Go register so we can get moving,” he told her, ignoring the comment from Stiles. Jemma gave him a look and walked over to the desk sergeant.

The case he was working on involved a biotech transport that was ambushed. The evidence at the crime scene, which included missing programmable DNA and a canister of Myklon Red, causes caused him to flash back to his ambush of the Section 31 hideout, recalling a similar canister there. While it the ambush appeared to be the work of the Khmer Black gang, Detective Nyota Uhura, using her knowledge and intuition as an Intelligence Analyst, disagreed. Leonard was inclined to agree with her.

“JTK-one-seven-zero-one registration complete,” the tablet Jemma was holding said. She handed it back to the sergeant just as Stiles stepped over to her.

“Hey, bot, don't snap on us, now,” Stiles said. Leonard glared at the other detective. Jemma was his partner. He may not like it, or her even, but that doesn’t mean someone can just disrespect her. Before he could say anything, a young officer stepped over to them.

“Sir, Detective Mitchell has been abducted. Pike wants you on it. His VX was destroyed. This is all we could get off it. Based on the masks, these are the same guys from the armed robbery,” the kid told them. Leonard watched the recording from Mitchell’s VX, it was definitely the same team.

“Suspect back from The General?” Leonard asked. The officer nodded. “Jemma, with me.” Leonard walked into the interrogation room and slammed their suspect’s head against the table, they didn’t have time to be nice about this. “Your gang killed four security guards. Now you've taken a cop. Where is he?”

Eric Ayel was one of the robbers, he was left behind because of a gunshot wound to his leg. Ayel just groaned. “Did they take him 'cause we have you?” Still no answer. “You know what this is?” Leonard held up a tablet. “It's your booking file. It describes the condition you were in when we got you. Now...” Leonard grabbed Ayel’s leg where he was shot, “what are you doing with programmable DNA? What's the Myklon Red for? Jemma, get ready to write down missing molar.”

“There are other ways, Detective,” she said flatly.

“I'm questioning this man, okay, not you. Now...” Leonard started but he was interrupted by his leg.

“Synthetic fail. Calibration required. Synthetic fail. Calibration required. Synthetic fa...” the automated voice said. Leonard groaned as the whole thing froze on him, it’s been doing that all day.

“You should get that checked, Detective. He shot himself,” Jemma said before stepping around him. “Perhaps it was a bit crazy this morning, maybe the doctors at San Fran General even missed it, but the trajectory of the bullet that hit you, the burn marks on your flesh… there's no chance that you were hit by a bullet from any gun but your own.”

“Is that true?” Leonard asked.

“You don't know the people I work for,” Ayel said.

“Trust me, I do,” the detective replied. These are the same people who literally blew up his life almost two years ago.

“I needed to get away from them any way I could,” the suspect told them.

“Look, we can help you, we can keep you safe, but you need to give us information,” Leonard said.

Ayel shook his head, “No, I'm not safe anywhere, not even here.”

“We'll put you in a secure location under guard. No one will find you, but you need to talk,” Leonard tried again.

“I need to be somewhere safe,” Ayel told them.

“Then, where's Detective Mitchell? What's the address?” Jemma asked.

Ayel looked at her, “Three-twenty-five Grand, apartment six.”

* * *

“Not that you need me to tell you this, but you just violated the crap out of that guy's civil rights,” Jemma said in the car after a few minutes of silence.

“Fantastic, I get the synthetic with the bleeding heart. Look, I don't care what you're programmed to do. You report what happened in there and you'll find yourself bouncing down the six-oh-four.”

“If I was going to report you, I would’ve done it already,” she retorted. He glanced at her but didn’t reply. “And stop calling me ‘synthetic’ unless you want me to start calling you ‘human’.”

They rode the rest of the way to the Grand Apartments in silence. Leonard wanted to be pissed that an android was questioning him, but she was right, he could get into a bunch of trouble for manhandling Ayel. He decided not to think about it too much as they joined the other officers heading into the apartment building.

The group moved though the first and second levels in formation until one of the VXs stopped their advance. “Stop. Potential explosive device. Humans back. Evacuate the building.” Jemma kept going down the corridor. “JTK-one-seven-zero-one, halt advancement. Halt advancement.”

“Detective,” she called after a minute, he moved to join her and some of the VXs fell in behind him.

“What is it?” he asked her, his eyes focused on the device a few feet in front of them.

“It’s not a bomb but that trip wire goes somewhere,” Jemma told him. “I'll lead you in?”

“I do not advise that, sir,” the VX said.

Leonard glared at him before looking at his partner, “Let's go.”

Jemma moved half a step ahead of him, weapon at the ready as they followed the trip wire, clearing the rooms they passed. Finally, they got to a door where the wire disappeared. Slowly, Leonard’s partner opened the door, checking the area around it.

“Mitchell,” Leonard said. The tall detective was in some kind of glass box that was attached to the trip wire.

“Help,” the other detective said.

“You gotta stay calm,” Leonard told him.

“McCoy, help me! Help! Do something!” Mitchell yelled. Leonard looked at his partner.

“Bulletproof glass. It's welded shut,” she said. This was beyond bad, Ayel played them. Leonard pulled out his phone.

“Rand speaking,” came the voice of the police officer assigned to transport Ayel.

“Rand, where are you?” he asked.

“On our way to the safe house,” Rand told him. “We have the perp in the car.”

“Okay, turn around… this whole thing's a setup,” Leonard said just as he heard tires screech and gunshots. “Rand, Rand.” As soon as the line was dropped, the device hooked up to the box that Mitchell was in went off, releasing a gas inside the box as Jem tried her damnedest to get it open.

“No, no, no, no...” Mitchell said until he stopped breathing.

“Stop, there’s nothing you can do,” he told his partner. “There’s nothing we can do.”


	2. Chapter 2

"Officer Rand and two other officers were killed, three VXs were destroyed, and the suspect escaped," one of the officers told him as he watched a recording of the escape on a tablet.

"I'm sorry," Jemma said. Leonard nodded, handed the tablet back and walked over to Mitchell's body.

"The morgue's lab is too slow. Get a lab box, take a sample of his blood, and send it to Scotty for analysis," he said.

"Don't need a lab box," his partner said as she grabbed a syringe and took a sample of Mitchell's blood. Then, she injected it into her neck, the blue circuitry under her skin lighting up as she did. "I just downloaded the information. Scotty should have the data now."

"That's a neat trick," he muttered.

"Just you wait, I got plenty," she smiled. Was she flirting with him? It's been way too long if he has to ask himself that question.

"Why him? Why target Mitchell?" Leonard asked.

"Was it a case?" Jemma asked.

"Maybe," he said. "Let's head back to the precinct."

They drove back in relative quiet. When they walked into the bullpen, Uhura looked up at them, "You okay?"

"Fine. Jemma, scan every case Mitchell was on," Leonard said. "Any connection to biotech, science, medicine, DNA, I want to see it."

"I don't know if this is anything," the android said, "but one of his files is missing. Case file number six-nine-six-three. It's gone from all internal records."

"Wait a minute, Gary told me this morning that he couldn't get access to his terminal. Maybe whoever took him deleted the file," Uhura offered. She and Mitchell went to the academy together, they were pretty close.

"They got into the whole system," Leonard said as he read over Jem's shoulder. This has Section 31 all over it.

"Who is they?" his partner asked.

"See if anyone downstairs can get that file back," Leonard told Uhura.

"On my way," the other detective said before she grabbed her jacket and left the room.

"The way you said that, you're thinking someone specific is behind this. Who?" Jemma asked as he searched though the files on his computer.

"When I want your help, I'll ask for it," he told her.

"You know what your problem is?" she asked.

"Always my favorite part of the day: a synthetic telling me what my problem is."

"That _word_ ," Jemma practically growled. "Your problem is, you don't know yourself. You don't trust anyone."

"Is that my problem?" Leonard asked sarcastically.

"And I don't blame you. After all you've been through, if I were like you, I wouldn't know myself either," she said.

"You're not like me."

"And I'm not like them. VX units are logic-based and rule-oriented. They have no true free will and they are designed to feel nothing. Now, I can't say that I was born, I can't say I grew in a womb or had a childhood, but I was made to feel and I do feel, just as much as you do. I read what you wrote in your report from the ambush: that if a VX hadn't left you behind, your partner might have made it out of that mess alive, and that part may be true, but I read _the whole_ report. By the time the ambush had begun, it was already too late and it was you who led them in, so you can blame a VX or you can blame yourself."

"Okay, you know what?" Leonard said.

"I am nothing like a VX," she said.

"You're obviously malfunctioning right now. Why don't you just take a second to reboot yourself?"

"Do not talk to me that way. If anyone is malfunctioning, it's you, McCoy."

"You know what I'm gonna stop doing? I'm gonna stop arguing with a piece of silicon and carbon fiber," he told her before stepping around her. His phone rang. "McCoy."

"It's Scotty. All police in the department are required to have mandatory inoculations designed in police labs for officers only. Those inoculations are meant to keep cops safe. Protects against biowarfare, gases, pathogens, et cetera. We found Myklon Red in Mitchell's blood, combined with programmable DNA. It targets the inoculation directly. It's like getting a hundred different diseases at once. The immune system goes berserk."

"What are you saying, Scotty?"

"I'm saying that that's why his body reacted in the way that it did. That's why he died. I believe Detective Mitchell was a test subject. Whoever we're up against..."

"They're targeting cops," Leonard finished for his friend. He hung up his phone and took a deep breath, he needed to know what he remembered. Leonard grabbed his jacket and walked past his partner.

Jemma called after him, "Where are you going?"

* * *

"I cannot allow you to do this. It's far too soon," the man told him. Leonard went to see the recollectionist, a man who performed the illegal medical procedure of helping you pull your memories from the recesses of your mind and to the forefront. Unfortunately, there were a lot risks with the procedure, which is why it was illegal.

"Look, this isn't about me," Leonard said. "Someone is killing police officers, and the only way we're gonna find them is if I remember more about the people who are doing it."

"Leonard, it's not safe for you."

"You do this and you do it now," the detective insisted, there was something about the information in his head and this case that were connected. The man nodded. Leonard pulled off his jacket and his shirt before getting settled in the chair and hooked up to a bunch of electrodes.

_"They were ready for us, Len," Phil said. "How did Section thirty-one know we were coming? How did they know? How'd they...?"_

_There was a VX. Leonard never really liked the damn things but they were useful, until they weren't. The robot spouted out a bunch of statistics before leaving Leonard and his bleeding partner behind._

_"Hey, come back here! You… Damnit," Leonard said before he pulled the other man to his feet and practically carried him away from the firefight. Then something hit his leg._

_People in black._

_Jocelyn. Something in her hand. A pulse charge._

_She threw it in his direction._

_Blackness._

"I am so sorry. I told him it was too dangerous," Leonard heard someone say. He felt hands on his neck. Warm, soft hands. He blinked his eyes open and found a pair of blue eyes locked onto him.

"You used my locator chip," he muttered.

"Someone has to keep an eye on you," Jemma told him.

"Okay," Leonard whispered. She was pissed off at him, he could tell, but she was still looking out for him. He didn't get it.

"You're lucky you got the partner with the bleeding heart. Even if it's just silicon and carbon fiber," she shot at him as she wiped the blood off his face with a damp towel. When she was done, Jemma helped him pull his shirt and his jacket back on, said something to the recollectionist and pulled Leonard across the street to one of the noddle bars.

"You want noodles?" he asked.

"Not for me. You need to eat, your system is all outta whack," she told him. "Do you want to order for yourself, or do I need to do that too?"

"I got it," Leonard told her. He put in his order, he wasn't gonna argue since he hasn't been eating as often as he probably should be. After a few minutes, his bowl was in front of him.

"What did you see when you were under?" she asked as he started eating.

"I saw someone who was close to me. Someone who, I realize now, that I should never have trusted. I want to say I...I'm not even sure it's real, but..."

"But it was. Who was it, Leonard?"

"It was my ex-girlfriend. Jocelyn. When I came out of my coma, she was gone. Took everything but my bones. Now I know why," he shrugged.

"Synthetic fail. Calibration required. Synthetic fail. Calibration required," his leg alerted him.

"I have got a fix for that," Jemma said.

"What?"

"It gets creaky sometimes? I've got a fix for that. Olive oil."

He chuckled, "Olive oil?"

"Yeah, you put it right on the joint," she told him.

"Olive oil?"

"You'll thank me."

"I suppose I… uh... I should acknowledge the fact that you saved my life."

"If you want, but it's not necessary. I'd be scrap metal or floating around in space right now if it wasn't for you. You can't ride without a… me and I've always wanted to be a cop. I can put up with the cranky attitude if it means I get to stick around a while. I like San Fran."

"You're not like them, the VXs. I don't know why, but you're not," he said. The VXs were like copies of each other, and in most cases, they were. He could admit that Jemma was intriguing. Not human but not really machine either. She was different and he could handle being partnered with different.

"I guess I should take that as a compliment," she said.

"You should."

"The VX series is based on first order predicate calculus. VXs have no intuition, or as you might say, no soul. For them, experience, memory is just recorded data. My series is designed to draw conclusions, make inferences. To think and feel… essentially."

He nodded and finished his noodles in silence. A thought occurred to him, "The answer is Mitchell, right? Who was targeting him, what was the payback for?"

"Yeah."

"And the only witness we have is Mitchell's VX."

"Which was blown apart when they took Mitchell," Jemma said.

"I know, stay with me. Scotty said his neural net was completely fried. Worthless to another VX, who wouldn't be able to… to put it together, to make sense of it, but you could make those connections. If we transferred the memory, or whatever is left of the memory from Mitchell's VX to you, you could make the connection."

"That's pretty good," she smiled.

"Well, I am a detective."

* * *

Leonard watched as Jemma jacked into the destroyed VX. He was surprised that she streamed the footage to his tablet so he could see what she saw.

_"Stand by. I'll be back. ...coffee... sugar," Mitchell said._

_Then there was shooting._

_Then Gary was on his knees with two men holding onto him at gunpoint._

_"Officer Mitchell, it's good to see you again," one of the masked men said._

_"Who are you?" Mitchell asked._

_"A few years ago, you logged something into evidence that doesn't belong to you. You may remember it as case number six-nine-six-three. No? Well, your precinct has been kind enough to hold it in evidence, but tonight, we're gonna get it back, and you're gonna help us do it."_

Jemma looked at him, "That's all there is. Does that mean what I think it means?"

"Yep," he told her as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial. "We've got something they want. Captain, we need to put the precinct in lockdown."

"What's going on, Leonard?" Pike asked.

"They're hitting us tonight. They're after something in the evidence room."

* * *

It was pure chaos when they ran into the precinct, VXs dropping all over the place. He looked at his partner, "Why are they shutting down and not you?"

"They're on a different frequency than me. Sometimes newer doesn't always equal better, especially where technology is concerned," she shrugged. He had to give her that one.

"Come on," he said as they ran though the building.

The pair drew their weapons and made their way though the building. When they got to the squadroom, someone started shooting at them. If Leonard had to guess, this was the leader of this Section 31 team. Jemma grabbed Leonard's jacket and pushed him behind a pillar before he could get his head shot off.

"Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied before she left him and went after the man who was shooting at them.

When the man realized that his shots weren't doing any damage, he sprayed the canister in his hand at her face, nothing happened. Just as Uhura and Stiles ran into the room, Leonard shot the terrorist in the shoulder and Jemma grabbed the canister before the human officers were killed with it.

* * *

"We've got to go through every piece by hand. We don't even know what we're looking for," Leonard sighed.

"We know it's here. And we know it's valuable because they were willing to kill a lot of cops to get it," Pike said.

"There must be some way to restore the evidence files that were wiped," Leonard said to his partner.

"I'm working on it but the sabotage was extremely thorough. I'll keep trying," she said.

"Thanks, Jemma," he touched her shoulder before walked out of the large evidence room. He smiled when he spotted Scotty restoring the VXs.

"Rise and be counted, lads. Stay out of trouble," the Scotsman said.

"You know, if you hadn't come back... You saved a lot of lives," Pike said as he stood next to him.

"Well, you insisted. Thanks," Leonard smiled. "You put in the rec order. For Jemma. I checked out her record. It's mostly redacted but I saw that it was you who put in the request for me to get her. Why?"

"Figured that a JTK would be good for you," Pike said with a shrug.

"That doesn't answer my question, Chris. Why Jemma specifically?" he asked again.

"Because she's special. Just like you," his commanding officer told him. "See you at roll call."

Leonard smiled as Pike walked away. "Hey, partner, let's go."

"Where to, Detective?" she asked.

"We still got some work to do. And call me 'Leonard'."

"Bones."

"What?" he asked.

"You said something last night about your ex only leaving your bones. I'm gonna call you 'Bones'."

"Alright, then."


	3. Chapter 3

"I got a case for you. Two girls died within minutes of each other, separate locations. Uhura has the one that they brought to the morgue. The other is still on scene at Crissy Field," Pike said over the phone.

"What's the connection?" Leonard asked as he ran a hand though his hair.

"They were both students at Cerberus Academy. And it wasn't something they were exposed to on campus. School pathogen sensors, all green," Pike told him. Cerberus was a school for 'chromes', or genetically engineered humans. Designed to be perfect, chromes don't just drop dead.

"I'm on my way."

"No. Jemma says you're still at home," the captain chuckled. Leonard groaned, repeated his last sentence and hung up the phone. He took a deep breath before he pushed himself out of bed to take a quick shower and get dressed.

Leonard kept having dreams or nightmares… memories of Jocelyn. Every time he closed his eyes he could see her. He could feel her. As much as he used to hold on to that feeling, now, it just made him sick. She was a terrorist and she tried to kill him. Everything between them was fake. Maybe that's why it bothered him so much. He let her in and she tore him apart.

After finishing his shower and getting dressed, he headed over to Crissy Field. Jemma was already there. Leonard took a deep breath, "Well, look who it is. My keeper."

"Good morning to you, too, Bones."

"Look, don't ever tell anybody where I am, where I was, what time I arrived or what time I left," he told her bluntly.

"Captain Pike is our commanding officer," she said. "And he asked."

"He's on a need-to-know basis. Protect, serve, cover," Leonard said. They've only been partnered up for a week but he thought that she'd at least have those three things down.

"You want me to cover for you, why don't you tell me why you turned off your locator chip for two hours this morning?"

"What you don't know can't hurt me," he said. It's not that he couldn't tell her that he went back to the recollectionist last night, he just preferred not to.

"You do know that it's my job to know about you, right? You're not just a badge number and a cute haircut, you're my partner," Jemma told him. He raised an eyebrow at the comment about his hair as she motioned the body. "Victim's name is Scarlett Davis."

"Huh," he knelt near the dead girl's body. "What we've got? Was she stung?"

Jemma's eyes scanned the girl and her skin did that blue thing it does. "No bee stings on her. No signs of an allergic reaction either."

Leonard pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up Uhura's number, "Uhura, Pike says we might be working the same case."

"It looks that way," the other detective chuckled.

"You got a cause of death?"

"They're calling it cardiac arrest," Uhura said.

"Which means they don't know. My girl's pupils are fixed and abnormally dilated. How about yours?" he asked.

"They're huge, I've never seen anything like it," Uhura told him. "I'm thinking OD, but from what I don't know. The hospital ran a standard drug panel. Over three hundred substances, all clean."

"Well, something stopped their hearts. There's always something new and exciting hitting the streets," Leonard muttered.

"Yea, I sent a blood sample to our lab. If there's something in this girl, we'll figure it out," Uhura said. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Jem handed him a container of some kind.

"We just found something," he said. "You got your vic's personals?"

"Just got them. There's not much here," Uhura replied.

"The container has a biometric lock circuit," Jemma said. "It's activated by an individual's DNA."

Leonard brushed the lock with their victim's hand and it opened. "It's empty."

"So is the one I found," Uhura told him.

"Well, we better find out what was inside, before we find any more dead kids," he said. "Jemma."

"Running an analysis," she said. "Substance: unknown. We will have to send it to the lab."

"Alright," Leonard gave her a nod. "Uhura, we'll meet you back at the precinct."

* * *

"We were right, this is new," Uhura looked up from her desk.

"What is it?" he asked, moving to look at her screen.

"The drug found in the blood of our victims contains a metabolite, it's a breakdown compound that indicates the presence of a drug or toxin," she said.

"Like what? Upper? Downer? Euphoric? Tremble stim? Hallucinogen? What are we talking about?"

"Good question," Uhura sighed.

"I thought chromes didn't do drugs," he said.

"Generally they don't. But that doesn't mean they don't experiment. They just don't have addiction issues. Those genetic defects get corrected in the womb."

Leonard glanced at the lab report, "Well, these two girls definitely experimented."

"Apparently three girls did," Jemma said. "The same compound was also found in the blood of a girl who died seven months ago. Irina Hoving, age fifteen. Also a student at Cerberus Academy."

"I'll look into it, see if the girls were friends," Uhura told them.

"This one's different," Jemma told them. "She didn't OD, she drowned."

"She could've been on her way to an OD and drowned before her heart stopped," Leonard said.

Jemma shook her head, "The original investigation couldn't find any conclusive evidence of drug use."

"Well, we've got more bodies than they do," he pointed out.

"There's a ton of chatter between these girls on social networks. They were definitely friends," Uhura said.

"Take a team to the school and see what you can find out. We'll meet you there after we talk to the mother of the girl who drowned," Leonard told her.

Uhura gave him a nod and left the bullpen. Leonard closed his eyes for second and caught a flash from the ambush. Not a full memory, just a flicker. He glanced around before he took one of the tiny red pills in his pocket. Maybe it'll come in clearer.

"Let's go," he said to his partner. She fell into step with him as he walked out the precinct.

"I know you've been taking Membliss, Bones. I'm required to give updates on your mental and physical condition every seventy-two hours. You thought I wouldn't detect it? Are you seeing that recollectionist after what happened last week?

"Look, I got it under control."

"Prolonged use of Membliss may result in paranoia, visual distortions…"

"Mm-hmm," he mumbled.

"Short-term memory loss, migraines…" Jemma kept going as they got into the car.

"Yeah."

"Heart palpitations, increased risk of aneurysms…"

He nodded, "Mm-hmm."

"Blackouts…" she said. At this point, he's mostly tuned her out.

"Right."

"And diarrhea."

"Diarrhea? Oh, I thought it was the burrito," he said.

"Just wanted to make sure you were listening," she chuckled.

"Look. I need those pills to help me. They open up memory clusters so I can..."

"Remember things about the ambush," Jemma said.

"Yes. I got it under control," Leonard told her.

"Pardon me if I don't take your word for it."

* * *

"I could never have afforded Cerberus on my own. Irina was special. And they let in a couple of naturals every year on scholarship," Misses Hoving, Irina's mother, told them.

"So she wasn't a chrome? Irina wasn't genetically modified?" he asked.

"She was born gifted. She worked really, really hard. Straight A's all the way," the woman smiled.

"Is there anything you can remember about your daughter's death? Anything that might've come to you in retrospect?" Leonard asked. "In your report, you said that Irina was a strong swimmer, that she never would've drowned. And that if she did have drugs in her system, that she wouldn't have done them alone."

"That's right. If those drugs helped kill Irina, someone knew where she got them. But none of her friends would say anything. So I hired a private detective to find out more about what happened that night. But they denied being her friends. He got recordings of some conversations that proved they knew each other," Misses Hoving said.

"What was on them?" he asked, he had a feeling.

"They were talking about being with Irina that night. Like I thought."

"Did they say anything about drugs?"

She shook her head, "No."

"Which friends?" Leonard asked.

"Elinor Church and Scarlett Davis. What is this about?"

"We found those two girls dead this morning," he told her. Leonard watched the woman's reaction, mildly surprised and a flicker of sadness, but that was it. "They had the same unknown drug in their system as Irina did. But a lot more of it."

"What did you do with the recordings?" Jemma asked.

"I gave everything to the police," Misses Hoving told them.

"There's no record of that," Jemma said, her face flickering blue for the half a second it took her to search.

"I know, when I followed up on it, they said the recordings were blank," the grieving woman said.

"What do you mean? You were told they were erased?" he asked.

"That's what I was told. They blamed it on a magnetic surge. They say that happens sometimes. Doesn't it?" Misses Hoving asked.

Leonard glanced at his partner, "Well, it can, but it's unlikely."

"Are you suggesting someone made it disappear?" Misses Hoving asked them.

"Anything's possible," he said. "Do you have the contact details of the private detective?"

"Let me get my phone."

"Thank you." Misses Hoving left the room and Leonard looked at Jemma. "Who was the cop that originally investigated the case?"

"Detective Jacobs, twenty-third precinct."

"Okay, well, let's find out what type of cop he was. Dirty? Clean? Put in a request."

Her face lit up blue, "On it."

* * *

After hitting a dead end with Jacobs, he was clean, they went to Cerberus to help Uhura. Jemma went to have a look in the girls' dorm rooms while he and Uhura interviewed Cerberus students from the girls' classes. They didn't get much from anyone so far but they still had a few people left on the list. Next up was Lee Drake.

"You knew Scarlett and Elinor. You have any classes with them?" Uhura asked the teen.

"Computer science. Advanced," Lee bragged.

"We were wondering if…"

"There are no illegal drugs at Cerberus," Lee said, cutting Uhura off.

"You didn't even let her finish the question," Leonard said.

"Was she gonna say something else?" the kid asked him in the most condescending tone possible. This is why he hated dealing with kids.

"How can you be so sure there are no illegal drugs at Cerberus?" Uhura asked.

"Just am," Lee shrugged.

"Your friends are dead. Aren't you afraid that whatever happened to them is gonna happen to you?" she asked the kid.

Lee smirked, "I don't do illegal drugs."

"That's cute, 'illegal' drugs. What about legal drugs? Or new drugs that haven't been made illegal yet?" Leonard asked.

"You wouldn't understand," Lee told him.

_Jocelyn handed him something._

Leonard shook his head clear, "Come on, Lee. Why don't you try and explain it? I mean, what are you trying to protect?"

"Like I said, you wouldn't understand."

* * *

"Please tell me you found something," he said to his partner as he walked into Scarlett's dorm room.

"I did," Jemma said. She had another bio-locked container like the one they found on Scarlett. Inside, there was a small pill. "I have her DNA on file, I used it to open the container. I already sent the information to Scotty. He said he'll have something for us by the time we get to the precinct."

"That's not bad, partner."

"Well, I am a cop," she said.

"I suppose you are," he smiled. "Come on."

* * *

"What's the drug do?" Uhura asked as they sat in the meeting room with Jemma, Pike and Scotty.

"Hard to say, lass. Kid in the lab is still working on it but he gave me the preliminary finding," Scotty told her. "It's the ultimate designer drug, there are some hallucinogenic elements but also things we just dinnae understand yet. It targets at least a dozen different neurotransmitter groups. Another thing is that Scarlett's DNA is attached to the molecules."

"That's not something an average metal meth head can cook up in their basement," Leonard said.

"The chemical layers are one point five microns thick and extremely uniform," Jemma said.

"Ahh, that sounds like they were made with a ChemPrinter," Scotty said.

"ChemPrinters are pricey and highly regulated, they even require a license. Let's find the ones in the city," Uhura said.

"Go," Chris told them.

The group, minus the captain, went to the bullpen to start pulling information. Of course, Jemma found the information they needed. "Bones, a Chemulon-Six ChemPrinter was licensed at a private residence in Embarcadero, less than a mile from Cerberus Academy. The owner is Edgar Kyle. He's been dead for seven months. But his son Julian was expelled from Cerberus last year."

"Let's go," he told her. They got into the car and headed to Kyle's residence.

"The Chemulon-Six has a very interesting safety feature: it automatically backs up a history of every drug it prints to a cloud. I've found the DNA of all of our victims in the log, this is definitely the machine that supplied them with the drug," she told him.

_"Leonard," Jocelyn said._

"Bones, are you listening to me?" Jemma asked. "Did you just have another flash? Maybe I should drive."

"No, no, I'm good. I've got it under control. Go on," he lied. It was stupid, he knew it but his pride wouldn't let him admit that he was having some trouble. He sure as hell couldn't admit it to his perfectly perfect partner.

"Irina Hoving only took one dose, one time; the night she died. Scarlett and Elinor had been taking the drug a while," she said.

"How long?"

"Roughly a year. But their fatal doses were a thousand times stronger than their previous ones. It looks as if this dealer intentionally overdosed them."

_Gunshots._

_Phil going down._

_Jocelyn._

"Bones!" Jemma called, her hand reaching over to hold the wheel. It was a good thing that her reflexes were fast, because he almost crashed the car into a bus. "Is that what you call control? Pull over. I'm driving."

"Jem…"

"I'm driving."


	4. Chapter 4

"Julian Kyle, I'm Detective McCoy. We have some questions we'd like you to answer," he said to the teenager in front of him.

"We have permission to search the house," Jemma said, handing the kid a warrant.

Julian led them into the house and walked over to a women in her late eighties. "These are, uh, police officers, Ma. They are here to ask me some questions, but don't worry." Leonard gave the kid a look. "They chromed me late. The machine's downstairs." Jemma headed in that direction. "My father got it to make his own pills, his own, uh, drug regimen. At the end, his doctors were trying all sorts of different treatment avenues."

"How long have you been dealing?" Leonard asked. "We found the DNA profile of the girls who died on the backup log of your ChemPrinter, along with every customer you ever printed a pill for. Bet you didn't know it had that feature. So when did you…"

"You don't believe me. Now you know why I didn't come forward," Julian said.

"Come again?" Leonard asked. That was… odd. Then again, everything about this kid was off.

"You don't believe me. Now you know why I didn't come forward," Julian repeated.

"I didn't ask you why you didn't come forward."

"Not yet. This conversation happened already. Can't you see them? Our words? They're all here. Your answers, are in the air," Julian said.

"So there's no point in us having this conversation, right?" Leonard asked.

"He's on the drug right now, Bones," Jemma said as she returned to the main room.

"I am," the kid smiled.

"Well, we're gonna have this conversation anyway. What does the drug do?" he asked the kid.

"It's called Vero," Julian told them. "It expands the mind, it opens it up to things that are in the universe that we are not supposed to see. It enables you to realize your full potential. The next Einstein, or Macgregor."

"Scarlett and Elinor were deliberately OD'd. Did you kill them?" Leonard asked.

"No, I didn't. If I was gonna kill someone, I wouldn't get caught. Certainly not with the machine in my own house," Julian shrugged.

"Unless that's exactly what you wanted us to think. Committing a crime so carelessly that we'd assume it wasn't you. How could someone so smart, be so dumb?" Leonard asked.

"That'd be smarter, I guess."

"And you knew the machine had a backup, so it was pointless getting rid of it," the detective offered.

Julian smiled, "So many roads."

"Is that how she drowned?" Leonard held up his tablet, a picture of Irina on the screen. He spotted a flicker in Julian's eyes, something he's seen in the mirror every day since he woke ups from his coma; regret, guilt and sadness. "Did you kill her? Was it unintentional?"

"I didn't kill Irina. You wouldn't understand," Julian said, more subdued than before.

"Yeah, I've heard that a lot lately. Did the other girls find out? They were gonna rat, so you OD'd them to shut them up?

"I didn't do anything to Irina, she was my friend. I'm trying to tell you, the printer was hacked. Somebody messed with the doses," Julian told them.

"Hacked?" This kid had to be messing with them. "You're telling us that you didn't kill these girls even though your machine made the drugs? That their deaths had nothing to do with Irina Hoving? And you got hacked? I don't believe you." The kid nodded. "I don't believe you."

"I told you that you wouldn't. Now you understand, why I didn't come forward," Julian said. Leonard nodded, that much was true.

"Come on, kid," Leonard said, handing him off to an officer that was waiting outside the house. He looked at Jemma, "There was a kid we interviewed today at Cerberus named Lee, studies advanced computer science. Same class as all three girls."

"You're thinking he might be our hacker," she said, the circuitry in her face lighting up as they got the car. "Let's look closer."

"Jem, you drive," he sighed, his hand still on door. "It's not any worse than me blacking out."

"I'll try not to be insulted by that."

* * *

"You got something?" Uhura asked, looking at Lee Drake's file on the screen Leonard and Jemma had up. "Ugh, not that kid again."

"Julian said his ChemPrinter was hacked. Is it bad I want it to be him no matter what?" Leonard said. He already knew the answer to that. Jemma gave him a look. "I know, I know, we don't a motive for him."

"No, but I think I have something better," Uhura said as she swiped her finger along her tablet, putting the information on the larger screen. "I've been looking for communication between the kids around the time of Irina's death. Nothing really popped up, but then I found this. It's an exchange between Scarlett and her father. It's a couple of weeks after Irina's death. That's the last transmission, 'till she died."

"He reached out to her several times after that, but she never responded," Leonard said. The messages were only mildly cryptic, something about Mister Davis taking care of something.

"They talked all the time, and then all of a sudden, nothing. There'd have to be a very good reason for a daughter to write off her father. So what'd he 'take care of' to get her so upset?" Uhura said.

"Good question," he said. "We'll ask him in the morning."

"Got somewhere to be?" Jemma asked.

"Yea, Pike wants to see me," he told her. "Goodnight, ladies."

* * *

"Hey," Leonard said as he sat next to Chris at the bar.

"Hey. I took the liberty of ordering," the other man said. The only person to ever get Leonard's appreciation of good bourbon was Chris Pike.

"Thanks," Leonard said before taking a drink. "I'm guessing this ain't a social call."

"Sorta," Chris sighed, "how you feeling?"

"You sound like Jemma."

"I guess I'll just get to the point then. Are you using alternative therapies to help you remember things? Because you seem a little unsteady to me."

"Unsteady?" Leonard asked.

"Tell me what's going on."

"I'm remembering some things. Stuff during the ambush. Things before the ambush."

"They said this would happen. You should let it happen naturally, Leonard. What are you remembering?"

"Things about Jocelyn, but nothing significant yet," he told his CO.

"You need to focus on the successes you've just had. That's how you rebuild. You saved the precinct a week ago."

"It doesn't make up for who we lost."

"Hey, those were my men too. You're not the only one who's responsible."

"I let her in, Chris. She has answers. Now that this is all coming back to me, I'm consumed by it," he replied honestly.

"Look, Leonard, I know how you are. And I care enough about you to tell you the truth. If you obsess about revenge, it'll take you down," Chris told him. There aren't a lot of people brave enough, or who care enough to bother. "Now that you are remembering things, you're gonna have to talk to Internal Affairs again."

"Oh, joy. You know they'll just try to blame me again. They think I conveniently forgot everything."

"We both know you didn't. That's why I have to talk to them too," Chris said. "I can tell you to stop 'til I'm blue in the face but I know you won't listen, so do me a favor, if you're gonna keep this up, bring Jemma in on it."

"Why?"

"Because she had to pull you out a recollectionist's chair last week. Don't worry, no one knows but me. She's not a VX, as much as it annoys the brass, she decides what information she passes on. She has your back and it worries her when your locator's off."

"I worry her?"

"I told you, she's special, that's why I requested her for you. Her soul… it's just as real as ours. If she were human, you wouldn't even question that she's worried. She is. Do you remember what happened to the JTKs?"

"Just that they lost it," Leonard said.

"They didn't, the GSKs did. Their operating system was designed to emulate human emotion, I'm sure you know that by now. Some of them became unstable and reckless. Others… killed themselves, shut themselves down after becoming emotionally overwhelmed. The JTKs that were made were just prototypes of a female GSKs. There weren't enough of them to know if they'd lose it or not and they got scrapped with the GSKs just in case."

"And you gave one to me?"

"Jemma was my partner back when she was first activated," Chris said. "I never met anyone who wanted to be a cop more than her, human, synthetic or otherwise. When she was deactivated it literally broke my heart. I put Jemma with you because you're surly, gruff, bitter. She's approachable, caring, empathetic even. You need a partner like that."

"So she's what, my opposite?"

"Basically. You need someone who's gonna bitch at you about not eating and call you out when you don't sleep but at the same time, won't report every little thing you do. The VXs are all about logic and you do a bunch of illogical shit," his CO chuckled. Leonard gave Chris a look. "For the right reasons most of the time but still. Putting Jemma with you was as close as I could get to giving you a human partner without actually giving you a human partner."

"You care about her."

"Just like I care about you."

* * *

"I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow. You've been here five days straight. Give your mind a rest," the recollectionist told him.

"You're a recollectionist, so let's recollect. I want to get in the chair, tonight," Leonard told the other man.

"I'd argue but I doubt you'll listen to me," the man said.

"You're right, I won't," he said before pulling off his jacket and shirt, and getting in the chair.

"In three… two…"

_"I've got something for you…" Jocelyn._

_The ambush._

_Jocelyn._

_Phil going down._

_Jocelyn._

_The VX leaving them to make their way out alone._

_"I hope you like it…" Jocelyn's voice was sweet but she was wearing the black combat gear from the raid. "It's kind of silly. I got something...for you. I got something for you. It's just something small. I just saw it and I thought of you."_

_The Matroyshka doll._

* * *

"Chekov."

"No," the kid said without looking up from whatever he was working on in the lab.

"I need you to check something out. It's got to do with the..."

"Section zirty-one ambush," the young Russian lab-tech said.

"Yeah. I need you to run these for DNA, tech, fingerprints. Anything we can trace back to a suspect," Leonard said, handing the kid the Matroyshka doll that Jocelyn gave him. It was sitting on a shelf in his apartment all this time.

"A Matroyshka doll?" Chekov gave him a look.

"It was a gift, I just need you run it."

"And you want it off ze books like ze others?"

"It's important."

"Ewerything I do around here is important, it is my job," Chekov pointed out. "A job I would like to keep, but zat won't happen if I keep logging in owertime on an unspecified case."

"Look, I'll sign off on it myself."

"If I get in trouble for zis, I will tell zem you threatened me."

"You're in luck. They'll believe that. You're the best."

"Tell zat to all ze girls."

* * *

"You went back to the recollectionist," Jemma said from the driver's seat the next morning. She refused to let him drive and he couldn't even argue about it.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Aside from the physiological evidence, I'm getting to know you and you're like a dog with a bone. You're trying to figure out how you let Jocelyn get so close, how got she information she wasn't supposed to have, how you didn't see that it wasn't real. It's like an open wound that won't heal until you find her," she said.

"That's pretty insightful."

"That's what I do. How was your talk with Pike?"

"It was good. I didn't know you were his partner."

"That's because it was redacted. They wiped a lot of my memories from before. According to Chris, I have to relearn a lot of stuff he taught me. It sucks."

"I know the feeling. Is that why you keep tabs on me?" Leonard asked.

"You're my partner, it's my job to care about your well being, even if you don't."

He smiled, "Phil used to say that."

"I'm sorry he's gone. I met him once, nice guy," she said sadly.

"He was the nice one. I guess that's your job now."

"I hope I can live up to his example."

Leonard didn't say anything, there wasn't a need. Maybe Chris was right and he needed her more than he thought.


	5. Chapter 5

"Do I need an attorney?" Harvey Davis, Scarlett's father, asked them as they stood in his living room.

"That's your prerogative," Leonard told him.

"Just a moment," Harvey said before he pulled his phone out of his pocket a made a call.

"Hey, Harvey, I'm just in a meeting," a voice on the other end said.

"You've got to be here. I'm with the police," Mister Davis told the other person. After a moment, a hologram of a man popped up in the middle of the living room floor.

"Allan Shaw. I represent Mr. Davis. May I see your credentials?" the hologram of the lawyer asked. Leonard pulled out his badge and let the lawyer scan it. "Thank you. What's this about?"

"It's about Scarlett's overdose," Harvey said.

"We're just gonna ask a few questions," Jemma told the two men, they both gave her a nod. "You sent a message to your daughter, saying you 'took care of it.' What did you take care of, Mister Davis?"

"Don't answer that," Shaw told him.

Leonard looked at Harvey, "Did you kill Irina Hoving?"

"What? No," Davis said to them, the shock written on his face.

"I would remind you, Detective, my client is grieving. This is grounds for harassment," Shaw said.

"This is not harassment," Jemma told the lawyer. "We're questioning your client in relation to a triple homicide."

"Homicide?" Harvey asked.

His lawyer seemed surprised too, "What do you mean, homicide?"

"Scarlett didn't die from an accidental overdose. We have evidence that someone deliberately spiked the doses meant for Scarlett and Elinor," Leonard told them.

"Are you sure?" Davis asked.

"Positive," Jemma said.

"You had a problem with your daughter. You weren't talking at the time she died. Something you did upset her. What did you do, Mister Davis?" the detective asked.

"Harvey, I suggest that we discuss this in private, and when we're ready, we'll get back to the detectives…" Shaw said but Harvey hung up the call.

"Scarlett was with Irina that night, yes. Elinor, too. They took the drugs together. But when the girls went back to the school, Irina stayed behind," Harvey told them.

"Why not just say that?" Jemma asked. It was a good question.

"Scarlett wanted to, but I wouldn't let her," Harvey said. "There was nothing anyone could do to bring that girl back. I did not want my daughter's life ruined. What happened wasn't her fault. Why should it follow her around?"

Leonard nodded, "The recordings of the girls talking? Do you have anything to do with that?"

"I heard Misses Hoving hired a private investigator. I paid money to make him and the evidence disappear," Harvey replied.

"So, you 'took care of it'," Jemma said.

"I was trying to protect her," Davis sighed.

"But she didn't want your protection, did she?" Leonard asked even though he could guess the answer.

"No. She was always very honest," Harvey said with a small smile. "You know, she said I'd pay for it. That we all would. And now we have. All of us."

"Your daughter?" Jemma asked.

"No, Misses Hoving," Harvey said. Leonard and his partner shared a look.

They thanked Mister Davis for talking to them and left the house. Leonard decided that taking him in for evidence tampering wouldn't be worth it, Jemma seemed to agree. He'd get off unscathed with that high-priced lawyer of his before Leonard could even finish the paperwork.

"It's interesting that Misses Hoving never told us she contacted any of the parents," Jemma said.

"Yeah and when she told us the recordings were erased, she acted like she had no idea who did it," he replied just as his phone rang. "McCoy."

"I got something from Julian's bedroom. Found another one of those vials, hidden behind a picture of Irina. This one opened with Julian's DNA," Stiles told him.

"Yeah? What was in it?" Leonard asked.

"Image stick," the other detective told him.

"Thanks," Leonard said and hung up the phone. "We gotta talk to Julian again."

* * *

"This," Leonard held up the small memory device, "is encrypted. You want to tell us what's on it?"

"Not really," Julian sighed.

"Here's a theory, tell me if I'm off. Misses Hoving discovered that you were selling drugs to everybody, including her daughter. So she threatened to tell the cops unless you were willing to do what she wanted. Give lethal doses to those two girls," Leonard said.

"This thing's locked up pretty good, must be important to you," Jemma said. "Is it an insurance policy? Did you record her threatening you?"

"You're a minor. We can cut you a deal, call it coercion. What's on the stick, Julian?" Leonard asked.

The kid looked at it for a long moment, "It's the last thing that Irina ever said to me. She was special, my best friend. And she was such a good person." The kid sighed and wiped a tear away. "She was under so much pressure."

"What kind of pressure?" Jemma asked.

"All her mother's hopes and dreams," Julian told them. "Nothing was ever good enough. Her mom rode her so hard. She didn't know how to manage it all. She always felt she wasn't good enough. But I loved her. I just wanted her to be her. When you're surrounded by perfect things, you learn to appreciate the beauty in flaws. I could never get her to believe that. I didn't want her to take Vero. It's the only thing we ever fought about."

"What happened?" Leonard asked.

"The drug opens up a world of possibilities for chromes. But for naturals? Well, I'll let her tell you," Julian said before he unlocked the image stick and played it for them. The three of them watched the last moments of Irina's life on Leonard's tablet.

After a few minutes of silence, Leonard looked at the kid, "Thank you for showing us that. Jem, grab Uhura, we need to go see Misses Hoving."

* * *

_"I know you said I shouldn't take it. But I did. Out of all the people in the world, Julian, I love you. And I want you to understand. I see now why I shouldn't have done it. Taken the drug. I'm limited. I'm not good enough. I'll never get to where I need to be, it's true. And I can see that now, that's why you didn't want me to take it. You see something in me that isn't there. Like my mother. She sees it, too. And what you think you see will never be there. There's no way you can feel what I'm feeling because you're not born that way. You're my best friend. You're going to do amazing things, Julian," Irina said before she walked into the water._

"No," Misses Hoving whispered as the Julian on the screen looked for his friend a minute after she disappeared into the waves.

"The drug didn't kill your daughter," Leonard said.

"That's not true. You heard her. She saw things she wasn't supposed to see. And that drug helped her do it," the woman told them.

"Misses Hoving, did you hire the hacker to up the doses of those two girls?" he asked.

"They acted like she didn't count. Like she was nothing. I tried to do it the right way but they destroyed evidence. They didn't care what I was going through. Their money and influence took my justice and I wanted them to feel what I felt. They don't know what it's like. The rage. It overtakes you. The fury. You try to let it go. I prayed for it but it consumes you. That's all there is. There's no peace, there's just noise. It's like static, constant and loud. You can't eat, you can't sleep. You can't look at other people's children. You feel like your insides are on fire. You stop living. She was just as good as any chrome."

"So you killed her friends? You killed someone else's children?" Uhura asked. "You put two other families through all this? For what?"

Misses Hoving looked at her, "You wouldn't understand."

"Understand what?" Uhura asked softly. "This is all Irina will be remembered for. She killed herself and her mother murdered her friends."

"Go ahead," Leonard told Uhura's VX, who took Misses Hoving out to the waiting squad car.

"You alright, Nyota?"

"I think people forget that chromes don't ask to be different," the other detective whispered.

"Someone made you that way," Jemma offered.

Uhura smiled, "Of course you figured it out."

"That you're a chrome? It wasn't hard," Jemma said. "If it makes you feel better, I understand what it means to be different."

* * *

"Bones," Jemma stood a little closer to him than usual and whispered. "That's Detective Finney from Internal Affairs." Leonard followed her line of sight to the man in the suit.

"I'll be right back," he told his partner. Better now than never.

He walked into the room and Finney offered him a seat. Pike had already given his report, so Leonard didn't have to do anything but answer a few questions.

"How long have you been getting these flashes?" Finney asked as he manipulated a holographic interface that Leonard couldn't see, Finney was wearing special glasses.

"A week."

"When you first met Jocelyn Darnell, did she approach you or did you approach her?"

"She approached me, like I said in my report."

"Mm-hmm. Right, she rear-ended your personal vehicle on your way home, obviously a setup."

"It wasn't obvious at the time. People meet each other in all kinds of different ways," Leonard said.

"Were you in a relationship at the time?" the other man asked.

"What's that got to do with anything?" He wasn't seeing anyone but he also didn't think it mattered.

"Did you check her out? New girl coming out of nowhere? What cop wouldn't, right?"

"Of course I checked her out. I did a full background. She was clean," Leonard said. He knew where this was about to go, where it always went.

"Mm-hmm. You and Jocelyn were moving along pretty quickly, huh?" Finney asked but Leonard didn't say anything. "She infiltrated you. Gave Section Thirty-One precinct files. And there were consequences."

"Look, I did everything by the book. I don't know how she got my files," Leonard asserted. That was one of the things that was driving him crazy.

"I know, of course you did. I mean, it says right here. You wrote it down. You were in a coma, hmm? You have trouble remembering things. Isn't it possible that maybe you forgot to follow protocol and now you just can't remember?"

"You mean, conveniently can't remember."

"I don't know. Are you sure you don't remember anything else?" Finney asked.

"I don't. Are we done?" Leonard didn't bother to wait for an answer before he stood up and walked out of the room.

"That bad, huh?" Jemma fell into step next to him.

"Jem…" He didn't want to deal with any of this shit at the moment.

"We don't have to talk if you don't want to but I'm not letting you run around all pissed off by yourself. I'm sure as hell not letting you drive," she said. Leonard looked at her and he could see the genuine concern on her face.

"Fine, come on."

* * *

"This is nice… aside from all the notes," she said when they stepped into his house. Nobody can see the digital post-its he had all over the place… except his partner who sees in like a dozen different spectrums.

"You were right, I'm a little obsessed." He watched Jemma as she scanned the room with her eyes.

"Why are you showing me all this?"

"Because Chris all but told me that I can trust you. I'm gonna need you to pull me back if I go too far, get too deep."

"I will," she told him just as his phone rang. He used the interface on his desk to answer it. Chekov popped up on the holographic screen.

"Hey, Detectiwe, we found something," the kid told him.

"Whatcha ya got?" he asked. Chekov was looking over his shoulder at Jemma. "It's okay, she's my partner." He wasn't even surprised at how each that rolled of his tongue.

"Oh, okay. Ze department did a high-lewel sweep of your place before you were reinstated but we missed zis. Ze doll is a listening dewice. Within the pigment of the doll is nano-circuitry. It is a radio transmitter. Someone's been listening to you. The last upload was sewen hours ago."

"Can we trace it?" Leonard asked.

"Working on it," Chekov told him. "I'll let you know if I find something else."

"Thanks, kid," Leonard said before he cut the connection.

"That's not good," Jemma said.

Leonard sank into a chair, "She's tormenting me."

"We're gonna find her."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because you're a good detective. Finding answers is what you do, Bones," she smiled.

"I guess you're right," he said. "Come on, I should get you back to your housing."

"I can't stay?"

"Seriously?" he asked. "What are you gonna do, watch me sleep?"

"No, but anything's better than hanging out with the VXs." He couldn't blame her for not wanting to spend her nights with those things.

"Don't you have to charge or hibernate… whatever you do at night?"

"I can go a few days on a charge-cycle, skipping one night won't hurt me."

"Alright," Leonard sighed. "Just don't stand around all night and don't snoop though my stuff."

"Sit down and no snooping, got it."

* * *

"You called me 'Jem'," his partner said out of the blue a few days later.

"What?"

"You called me 'Jem' seven times in ten days."

"Uh… huh. Sorry, if you want me to stop…"

"No. It's just… One way to connect with someone is to create a nickname for them. A name that says 'I know this person', essentially, showing them that they belong. I call you by a nickname simply because I prefer not to call you by your last name, using your first name on duty feels oddly personal and calling you 'Detective' means we're either detached or we're in trouble. You calling me 'Jem' denotes affection, however mild it may be. You like me."

"You read too much into stuff," he chuckled.

"Maybe, but you didn't deny it," she pointed out.

"I… I like you better than the VXs."

"That's still not a denial, Bones."

"You're frustrating," Leonard chuckled.

"As are you. Still not a denial," Jemma smiled.

"You're not gonna let this go, are you?" he asked.

"Just admit that you like me. It's not that hard."

"I will admit no such thing," Leonard told her.

"Maybe not today."

"Not ever."

"We'll see."


	6. Chapter 6

"CSI finished upstairs?" Leonard asked as he passed one of the officers outside the Risa Gardens Hotel. Two weeks back and everything was going well so far.

"Shouldn't be long, sir," the officer said. Leonard nodded his thanks.

"You're a bot," a kid waiting outside said to Jemma.

She smiled, "Yes, I am."

"Cool! What can you do?" the little girl asked. Jemma tucked her long hair behind her ear and made the circuitry on the right side of her face light up. "Whoa."

A little boy's eyes went lit up, "Oh, awesome!"

"Are you a robot, too?" another boy asked Leonard.

"No," Leonard answered, "I'm human."

"Oh. What can you do?" the first little boy asked.

"He catches bad guys," his partner said before Leonard could think of something. That seemed to be enough for the kids because they smiled and told him to be careful.

"Of course you're good with kids," he muttered when they were alone in the elevator.

"Of course you're not good with kids," she retorted.

"It's not that I'm bad with them…"

"I didn't say you were bad, I said you weren't good. There's a difference."

"I guess. You got any information on this case yet?" he asked as they stepped out of the elevator and walked to room 61007.

"Victim is ID'd as Sebastian Jones. He paid for the room with cash. Front desk said he showed up with a woman. Red hair, twenties. About a half hour later, two men showed up," Jemma told him right after they stepped into the room. Her circuity lit up, "There are no fingerprints. I don't think we're gonna get anything from Forensics. Everything is tainted in here. They used a DNA bomb."

"I hate that stuff. Any surveillance?" he asked as he looked at the casings from the bullets.

"She came in at eighteen-fifteen. They arrived twenty minutes later," his partner motioned to his tablet. She must've sent the footage to him already. "They're wearing FlashMask." He hates that stuff too.

DNA bomb was just what it sounded like, a bunch of DNA collected in a small canister and set off to cover anything useful. FlashMask was a surveillance countermeasure that you spray on your face. It makes people appear as a bright, white light on camera. The footage didn't show them what happened inside the room but the two men walked out with a bag that didn't show up with.

"They took his bag."

"Bones, she's an android," Jemma said. He looked at the woman again, he couldn't tell but he wasn't gonna argue with Jem on that one.

* * *

"What do we have on our victim?" Pike asked when they were back at the precinct.

"Sebastian Jones was a high-end sex trade bot-maker," Jemma said.

"Yeah, too bad he's dead," Leonard chuckled. "Could've made you a boyfriend."

"What am I gonna do with a boyfriend? Putting up with you is a full-time job," she quipped.

"You know what, I'll give you that one," he said.

"Give? I took that," Jemma said with a wink.

He looked at his partner, "Oh, that's cute. Maybe I should trade you in for a newer model."

"Maybe I should trade _you_ in for a newer model."

"Do I need to get you two a room?" Pike asked.

"No, sir," they replied in unison.

"Good. What do we have?" the captain asked.

"Sebastian Jones' company is called Lexington Sapients. They specialize in Intimate Robot Companions and advanced sexual robotics," Jemma answered while Pike looked at the footage.

"Is this one of his sexbots?" Chris asked.

"We don't know, yet. IRCs are licensed but this one's not registered to anybody," Leonard said. "Jem's already looking."

Chris nodded, "What else do we know about his life?"

"No spouse, no kids, no criminal record. Legitimate businessman. Inventor," Uhura said from her desk.

"He has twenty-three patents to his name and is credited as a pioneer in developing the artificial blush response," Jemma added, making the skin on her face flush a soft rosy color for a few seconds. Leonard did not know she could do that.

"Every red-blooded man in this city owes a debt to this fallen genius," Stiles said, putting his hands over his heart.

"Why, because he makes sex trade bots?" Uhura asked with a look of confused disgust on her face.

"We call 'em 'bang bots.' They actually like it," Stiles smiled.

"And you know this from experience?" Uhura asked.

"You say it like it's a bad thing," Stiles shrugged.

"Crimes in the sex trade are down thirty-eight percent since the Intimate Robot Companions were introduced," Jemma interjected.

Stiles smirked, "Right. Do that math."

"The fewer real women that have to sleep with you, John, the better off the world is," Uhura quipped.

"Okay, children," Pike said, "What else do we know about him?"

"Sebastian Jones couldn't pay his bills," Jemma said. "Lexington Sapients declared bankruptcy three months ago. Creditors seized all of his assets, and now they're currently sitting in a repo storage facility."

Chris looked at him and his partner, "McCoy, Jemma…"

Leonard nodded, "We're already gone."

* * *

"Found a court summons. Sebastian was being sued," Jem told him just as his phone rang. He gave her a nod and answered the incoming call.

"McCoy."

"Your case just got weird. The CSIs went through the elevator at the hotel, scanning spots these guys likely touched, trying to pick up some DNA on them but they didn't leave any. However, everywhere the bot touched was DNA from a twenty-five year-old girl named Nicole Bloomquist, who was abducted three weeks ago from a parking garage," Uhura said.

"Are you telling me the sexbot we're looking for is leaving this girl's DNA?" he asked.

"It seems that way," she sighed.

"Thanks, Uhura," Leonard said before hanging up. He filled his partner in.

"The Bloomquist investigation is officially still open but the case hasn't been active for over a week. The detective assigned it has an above average caseload," Jem said.

"Don't we all these days?" he asked sarcastically. "Don't answer that."

"I wasn't going to. You're right, there are far more cases than there are cops to work them," she said as she looked though Jones' belongings.

They stayed at the storage facility for another twenty minutes before Leonard decided that they weren't gonna find anything useful there. On the way back to the precinct, Uhura called again. There was another abduction like Nicole Bloomquist's. A 20-something female, parking structure, cameras were disabled. Uhura also found three more missing persons cases with the same pattern. Unlike the other abductions, they left someone behind. Their latest victim's son, David.

"Can I talk to him?" Leonard asked Uhura when he and Jemma walked into the bullpen.

"Maybe I should talk to him. You're not good with kids," his partner said.

"Hey!" he looked at the women, human and synthetic. "I'm great with kids, really." Jemma and Uhura both raised an eyebrow. "I'm okay with kids and we need to talk to him. Jem, you can back me up if you want."

"He's at your desk," Uhura said with a smile. Leonard turned around, and sure enough, there was a little boy sitting in his chair.

"Hey. I'm Detective McCoy. You must be, David, right?" Leonard said. The boy with the blonde curls nodded. "I know this must be hard but I need you to be brave. You think you could do that for me?" David nodded again. "You think you can tell me what happened to your mom?"

"You like him?" David asked, looking the toy sitting next to Leonard's computer. It was a gift from Phil's little girl a long time ago. Leonard tapped the toy's head and it started walking around the desk. David's eyes lit up.

"I'll give him to you if you want him. But you have to promise me to look after him because he means a lot to me," Leonard told the boy.

"I promise," David said, taking the offered toy.

"Well, since you promise, I trust you," Leonard smiled. "I really need your help, David. I need you to tell me what happened with your mom. You guys were in a car, right? Your mom got out."

The boy nodded, "She went to put the trash away."

"Then what happened?" Leonard asked.

"I saw the car."

"Did you see who was in it?"

"Two men. They put her in the car and drove away," David said.

"What kind of car was it? What color?"

"It was a big, silver car," the boy told him.

Leonard looked up at Jemma, the side of her face already lit up blue. "A big, silver car. That's good."

"When is my mom coming?" David asked him.

"Won't be too long, buddy. You did really good," Leonard said before asking an officer to stay with the boy.

"I stand corrected, you aren't that bad with kids," Jemma said as they fell into step with each other. "I found it."

"The car?" he asked.

"Yes, silver sedan on a traffic cam a block from the parking structure. The license plates track back to a red SUV. I've put an alert out for the plates," she said as he tapped on Pike's glass office door. Leonard filled in their CO on what he and Jem found so far.

"Okay, two girls were abducted in the same manner and one of them, her DNA was found on the sexbot who was with Sebastian Jones when he was murdered," Pike said.

"I think we should focus on finding the sexbot that was with Sebastian," Leonard said.

"If we can access her memory, we might be able to see what happened in the hotel that night. And identify who did it," Jem added. "That's our best bet for finding the missing women."

Uhura tapped on the door before she pushed it open, "Guys, I might have a new angle. I dug into those summonses you found. Sebastian's former business partner Clay Treadway was suing him for intellectual property infringement and he just opened a sexbot showroom downtown for himself. It's motive. He could be involved."

"McCoy, Jemma, check him out," Pike ordered.

* * *

"Do you think Carol Marcus is still alive?" Jemma asked when they were in the car.

"I hope so. Every hour she's gone diminishes the chance of us finding her alive," he sighed. They really need to get that woman back to her son.

"What do you tell a small child when someone dies? I've never considered that, what you would tell a small child," his partner said sadly.

"Well, you say the same thing that you'd say to an adult."

"What do they say?"

"You tell them that the person that died has gone to a better place," he said.

"Why would anyone say that when there's no way to really know where living things go when they stop living?" she asked. It was a good question. He actually had to dig through his brain for the right answer.

"It's designed to give hope, comfort, ease the pain. People believe it because they need to."

"Hmm, the data I've studied suggests that the best proof of one's existence is if one is remembered after they're gone. Was your partner's daughter told that her father went to a better place?"

"I don't know," Leonard said. He hasn't talked to Phil's family since before. He's tried to go see them, a few times, but he could never get out of the car.

"You never spoke to your partner's family? I can understand why that would be hard for you," Jemma said, minus her usual snarky attitude.

"It's not easy," he told her. "I'm trying but I can't."

"If you need to me to go with you, I will."

"You don't have to do that," Leonard said.

"I know I don't but if that's what you need me to do then I will," she said before she looked out the window.

He smiled to himself.

* * *

"This place is interesting," Jemma said as they walked into Treadway IRC.

"Interesting?" he asked. They were in a room full of scantily clad androids and 'interesting' was all she could come up with? "We can still get you a boyfriend."

"We could get you one too. That guy over there is pretty hot," she smiled. He didn't bother responding. "There's Clay Treadway."

They walked over the man and introduced themselves before Leonard got straight to the point, "Your ex-partner, Sebastian Jones, when was the last time you saw him?"

"Six months? Seven? We'd been sort of on the outs lately," Clay answered.

"On the outs? You were suing him," Leonard pointed out.

"I have intellectual property rights on designs we developed together at Lexington," Treadway told them.

"What happens to the rights now that Sebastian's dead?" Leonard asked, his eyes wondering to the naked bot that walked past them.

"Well, they would naturally revert to me," Clay sighed.

"Is this one of your models?" Jemma asked, putting a picture of the redhead from the hotel onto one of the screens.

"No, she's not mine," the man said after a moment.

"You ever seen these women before?" Leonard asked as his partner switched to pictures of the missing women.

"No, but they're not synthetics," Treadway said.

Leonard asked with a raised eyebrow, "How can you be sure?"

"In my line of work, you get to know," Clay said before looking at Jemma. "You are a rare bird, aren't you? There were only twelve JTKs made, nine were destroyed and two are at NASA, I haven't seen one in a while. You know, the latest sexbots have some of your old tech in them. They're capable of bonding empathetically with their clients. Sense their moods and respond accordingly. It's a significant achievement." Clay looked Jemma up and down for a minute. "If you want an aesthetic or hardware upgrade, I'm sure I'd be able to work something out with the police department."

"She's perfect the way she is," Leonard asserted protectively. So, Jemma might actually be getting under his skin a little. He pulled Clay back on topic, "If your bots are so special, why was Sebastian so in debt?"

"Well, if you knew Sebastian, you'd understand. He was an artist. We were making good money. But he was determined to create the next line. Better than the last. He sunk all our capital into new fabs, tooling, subsystems. He bet the whole company on it. And then our biggest client cancelled their contract with us. Took us completely by surprise. Bankrupted us."

"Who was your biggest client?" Leonard asked. Clay gave him a look. "If you don't want to tell me, that's okay. We'll just subpoena your records. Shut you down for a few days while we go through them."

"It was Orion Syndicate. They said they were cutting out the middle man," Treadway said.

"You mean they found a new supplier?" Leonard asked.

"Apparently. Sebastian couldn't believe that anyone could build a better sexbot than us," Clay sighed.

"The first picture we showed you, does she belong to Orion? Is she why Sebastian was at the hotel the night he was killed?" Jemma asked.

"I wouldn't know. Look, I-I don't want to talk about this anymore," the man in front of them was nervous, scared even.

Leonard and Jemma looked at each other before she asked, "Did they threaten you?"

"No. They were good clients. They always paid on time. And that's all I'm gonna say about them. Excuse me. I have customers," Clay said.

"One more thing, then you can go," Leonard said. "Have you ever heard of people incorporating human DNA into a sexbot?"

"That's illegal. And I think you know that," Treadway told them before he went to talk with some clients.

"I'm perfect the way I am, huh?" Jemma asked. He didn't say anything. "I told you that you'd admit to liking me."

"I didn't admit to anything."

"Your mouth says one thing but your pulse says something else," she said.

"What?" he asked how did she… "You scanned me?"

"All the time. It's part of my protocols, I can't help it. Sorry."

"Make it up to me?" Leonard asked. She nodded. "I want you to hack into Treadway's customer network. Find the Orions."

"We don't have a warrant," she reminded him.

"I know. Does that mean you won't do it?" he asked.

Jemma's circuitry lit up and she smirked, "Got it. Plan?"

"Let's shake the tree and see what falls."


	7. Chapter 7

Jemma found out that the Orions own a place called The Borderland where they sell services with sexbots. Pike approved a plan for them to take a team in and test all the bots for human DNA and ask the patrons if they've seen the redhead. If they get nothing, they get nothing, but Leonard's instincts told him that they were on the right track.

"We tested all the bots," Chekov said. "Zey are all clean."

"Thanks, kid," Leonard said just as two men walked over to them.

"I am Kai, the manager. Can I help you, officers?" the taller man said.

"Is this one of your bots?" Leonard asked them, showing the men the picture on his tablet.

"No. We got a great selection here. We can get you pretty close to this one. Our bots have passed all the required tests. Special rate for cops. We love cops," Kai said.

"Yeah. We love cops," the other man added. Something was off about these two. Without drawing any attention to his hand, he touched Jem's wrist, hoping she understood what he was asking her to do without letting them know that she's an android.

"Well, great. If you answer all of my questions, maybe I'll let you get to first base. You ever buy from Sebastian Jones and Clay Treadway?" Leonard asked.

"We used to. Not anymore," Kai told him.

Leonard nodded, "Why'd you stop?"

"We make our own now," Kai said with a smile.

"And you're sure that's not one of them?" Leonard repeated his earlier question.

"Already said," Kai said, standing a little straighter.

"Bones, Detective Uhura has something for us," Jemma said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks for your time, gentlemen," he gave them a nod before his partner gently pulled him away. As soon as they were out of earshot, he looked at her. "What you get?"

"His vitals suggest that he's lying," she told him. "Or he doesn't like you."

"Not the first, won't be the last. You said Uhura had something?" he said as they walked out to the car.

"They found the silver sedan that was used in Carol Marcus' kidnapping. Tracked it to an industrial facility off Eighth Street. It left ten minutes ago and we lost it."

"That's five minutes from here. Should we go take a look?"

"We should."

* * *

"Beautiful green. They got the bloody color just right. These are bullet holes, they targeted the cortical relays and storage centers," Scotty said as he examined the bot's head in his hands.

Leonard and Jem found the sexbot they were looking for at the industrial facility. The IRC was stripped of skin, her memory was destroyed and she was left in a heap at the bottom of some stairs like a piece of garbage. Scotty was trying to pull off a miracle.

"There's a small chance that her temporal housing might be intact enough to salvage some of her echoic memory. Tell us something about the people that did this," the Scot said before he pulled part of her head off. "Apologies, lass. I'm usually alone when I do this. You might want to look away."

"It's fine," Jemma said quietly. Leonard looked at her and what he saw was anything but fine.

"Why did they peel its skin off?" Leonard asked.

"The DNA. I think they were abducting the girls to harvest their skin," his partner answered.

"Makes sense. If you used human skin, you'd make the best sex machines on the market. I think Sebastian found out about it. That's why they killed him," he told her.

"Sex machine, bang bot? It's a bit myopic, dinnae ye think? I mean, not everyone who visits a sexbot is looking for sex. Some people go for the conversation or for a sympathetic ear at the end of a long working day surrounded by people who only ever come to visit when they want something from you," Scotty said, giving them a look.

"You know we love you, Scotty," Jemma said, giving their friend a soft smile.

"I know ye do, lass. Ye check up on me all the time and, hell, you're the only ones that actually talk to me in person these days. Anyway, I think you're right. They're growing skin using DNA from the abducted women. Synthetic skin, as good as it is, is a long way from the real thing. There are pheromones and other biological features that trigger attraction. Here it is." He pulled a mangled piece of metal out of her head. "Sorry, it's too damaged. If you want to know where these bots are coming from, I need a live one."

"Thanks for trying, buddy," Leonard said.

"No problem, laddie. I hope you catch these idiots. It's a bloody waste," Scotty said before going back to whatever he was working on before they showed up. Leonard and Jemma went back to the car.

He glanced at his partner, "You're quiet. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just… looking at that bot in the lab made me think; who's gonna remember me when I'm gone?"

"You're a cop. The people you help will remember you," he told her. However, he wasn't sure how true that was. She spent four years in a storage room and nobody but Chris and Scotty seemed bothered by that fact. "I'll remember you."

"You don't like me, remember?"

"If you tell anybody what I'm about to say, I'll deny it," Leonard said. She nodded. "You're a little annoying at times and you watch me eat, which is creepy, but I'm glad Chris partnered us up." Leonard glanced at her just as she smiled. "I'll watch your back just like you watch mine. And if something happens to you, I'll remember you."

* * *

Stiles is an insufferable ass but he's a good cop. He called them with a location on the silver sedan, and together, they chased it, pulled it over and arrested the men inside. They also got themselves a live sexbot with human DNA.

"Hello again," Gaila said when Leonard and Jemma walked into the interview room.

"A human's DNA was used to make your skin," he told her before showing her Carol's picture on his tablet. "We need to find this woman and we don't have much time. Have you seen her before?"

"No," Gaila answered, slightly bewildered.

"Where were you made? Who owns you?" he asked.

"Do you know where you were born?" Jemma interjected. Leonard gave his partner a look and realized that he was asking the wrong question. Unlike Jemma, there were a lot of bots that didn't know what they were in some form or fashion. Not that it mattered much, Gaila didn't answer either of them.

"You ever worked with this girl?" he showed her a picture of the other redhead.

"Virta," she said with a smile.

"Right, Virta. Do you know where she was born?" Leonard asked. Gaila shook her head. "Where were those men taking you tonight?

"They were taking me for a ride," Gaila said.

"We think they were taking you to be destroyed," he told her honestly.

"Why would anybody want to destroy me? There are much, much better things to do with me. We don't have to do anything if you don't want to. I'm a very, very good listener. You know, people look for connections in different ways. That's all people are looking for, is someone who cares about them. That's what I'm here for," Gaila said, touching his hand before she looked at Jemma. "Do you know where Virta is?"

"Yes."

"Can I see her?" Gaila asked.

"Why do you want to?" Jemma asked.

"I don't know," Gaila said, confused.

"You were designed to bond with people. That's what you were developed to do. To notice when they're there. That also means you notice when they're not there. That's why you want to see her. That's what you're feeling," his partner told her.

Leonard wondered just what his partner was feeling in this moment. IRCs were highly advanced and the JTKs more so. It wasn't impossible to think that Jemma would be bothered by this case, he was bothered by it and he was human.

"Who told you to go with the men we found you with tonight?" he asked.

"Kai. Do you know Kai?" Gaila asked.

Leonard nodded, "Yea, we know Kai."

* * *

They raided The Borderland but they came up empty on the skin lab, however, Jemma found a discarded learning module near the computers in the club's basement.

"How's that piece of junk gonna help us?" Stiles asked.

"It's a U Juno Pendant Learning Module. Made public after the department upgraded. The problem was that they gave off an unwanted GPS signal when they updated. We can have Scotty access Gaila's logs…"

"…to trace her back to her point of origin and find the skin lab," Leonard finished for her.

"Exactly," Jemma said with a smile as the circuits under her skin lit up. "Scotty's already on it."

* * *

"Clear," the VX next to him said, so Leonard moved to the next door, Jemma across from him. They, Stiles and a team of VXs were in a warehouse near pier eighty thanks to the information Scotty got from Gaila's logs.

"Clear," he said as he checked the room, his partner moving past him to the next room before they headed down a set of stairs.

"Take him down," someone called when man pointed a gun in their direction. The VXs shot him before he could hurt any of them.

They all kept moving into a room with a bunch of servers. One of the Orions tried to shoot Leonard but he shot the man first, stepping around him and continuing his search for the missing girls. What he found was Kai.

"Drop the weapon," he told the man. "Drop it." Kai seemed oddly calm as he put the gun on the ground.

"Bones!" Jemma called before Leonard heard two gunshots right behind him. He looked back to find his partner kicking a gun away from the man she just shot.

"Thanks," Leonard said.

"Anytime," she smiled and moved past him. One of the VXs took Kai and Leonard followed Jemma. "We're clear!"

"Clear!" Stiles said.

Leonard nodded, "Clear!"

"I got Lorraine White," Stiles told them. Finding the woman on a metal table. "She's dead."

"Nicole Bloomquist. She's still alive," Jemma said.

"Carol Marcus. She's alive," Leonard said, glancing over at his partner. That's when Carol grabbed his hand. He wrapped his hand around hers and smiled, "David is gonna be very happy to see you."

* * *

"Where am I going?" Gaila asked them.

"To a better place," Jemma told her, repeating his words from earlier. Because androids with human DNA were illegal, Gaila –and the others- had to be deactivated. His partner told Pike that she was going to be there for Gaila's deactivation and Leonard decided to go with her.

"Will you be there?" Gaila smiled.

"No," Jemma said before giving the other android a hug. "We still have a lot of work to do here but I will remember you."

Jemma brushed the long red curls out of Gaila's face and gave her a kiss on the cheek before stepping away to let the tech do his job. A cord was inserted into the port on the back of Gaila's head, a few keystrokes later and her eyes went black, all the life was drained out of her. For a few minutes, they didn't say anything, then Jemma looked at him.

"Thanks for coming here with me."

"Anytime," he smiled. "Come on. We've had a long day."

* * *

"You okay?" Leonard asked his partner as they sat at the noodle bar.

" _You_ want to talk about feelings?"

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," he told her.

"It's not fair. She didn't do anything wrong and they just… killed her," Jemma said. "It's like…"

"When you were deactivated?"

"It's not my fault that some of the GSKs were unstable. Show me one cop that doesn't have bad days on the job. Days were we aren't fast enough. Days were we lose other cops or civilians. They don't euthanize all of you when an officer kills himself or a detective goes off the rails. Everyone sees the shrink then it's right back to work," she told him. "GSKs and JTKs were meant to be human. And while everyone calls it a synthetic soul, it's just as real as yours. Who I am as a person is real. Today just reminded me how little people actually care and how easy it is just be thrown away."

"I won't let that happen," he said. He doesn't know how but he'll find something if it ever comes to that.

"You know, when I was deactivated, my last thought was that I hoped someone would be there to wake me up. Then, there you were. I guess that means you're stuck with me."

"I guess we're stuck with each other," Leonard chuckled. He doesn't know how long it was but they sat in silence for a while before Jim looked over at him.

"Are you okay?"

"We saved most of the girls, bad guys are off the streets, that's enough for me," he said.

"That's not what I'm asking and you know it. You didn't flash today or yesterday," she said.

"I haven't taken any Membliss since I let you in on my Section Thirty-one investigation. I want answers but I decided that they aren't worth killing myself over," Leonard said.

"I'm glad you're finally using that brain of yours," Jem chuckled.

"Watch it or I'll…"

"What? Face it, you can't do this without me."

"That's true enough." He wasn't allowed to ride without a synthetic but he found that he didn't want to ride without Jemma. "I should probably take you back to the precinct and head home."

"Sounds like a plan."


	8. Chapter 8

Leonard couldn't sleep. Usually, his memories of Jocelyn and the ambush would be the source of his insomnia but today, it was Jemma. He had no idea how she managed to get into his head so damn fast. He was finding it hard to think of his partner as being just an android. Their last case just proved that she was probably more human than he was in a lot of ways.

He stared at the ceiling for an hour before he decided that he should just talk to her. It's not like she sleeps. Except she kinda does and she looks peaceful that way. Without conscious thought, he grabbed his phone and hit the command to connect his phone with her.

"You're supposed to be sleeping, Bones," she said as soon as the call connected.

"Trying. Can't."

"Wanna talk about it?" Jemma asked.

"What do you do at night? Like right now, what are you doing?"

"Charging," she chuckled.

"What's that like?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"I imagine that it's not dissimilar from sleeping but I honestly don't know what it's like to sleep," Jemma told him.

"You know what sleep is."

"A naturally recurring state of relatively suspended sensory and motor activity, characterized by total or partial unconsciousness and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles," she said. That sounded like the dictionary version of sleep and she said as much. "That doesn't explain how it feels."

"I don't know if I'm the best person to tell you, my sleeping habits leave a lot to be desired," Leonard sighed.

"What did your best sleep feel like?" Jemma asked quietly.

"Peaceful. Warm but not too warm. Relaxing. It almost felt like floating away," he said with a yawn.

"Sounds nice."

"It was. I should probably…"

"Go to sleep, Bones."

"Hey, Jem, thanks."

"Anytime."

He hung up the phone and sat it on the table beside his bed. Two minutes later, he was fast asleep.

* * *

"You're staring at me," he said.

"You look rested," Jemma replied.

"Been getting some real sleep," Leonard shrugged. He wanted to brush it off as not being a big deal but he's talked to Jemma four nights in a row before promptly falling asleep. The detective honestly doesn't know if it's just talking to someone or if it's her in particular.

"That's good," she said. "Pike was worried about your sleeping habits almost as much as I was."

"Do you tell them about…?"

"You calling me every night? No. I don't think it's necessary for them to know. I did mention to Chris that you do talk to me when he asked how you were doing but I didn't feel the need to elaborate... Unless you become a danger to yourself or others, then I won't have a choice."

"Thanks."

"Not necessary. We're partners, I got your back," she said. He glanced at her just as the lights under her skin flashed.

"What?"

"Body discovered at forty-five hundred Crescent Avenue. Three blocks away," Jemma told him.

"Tell dispatch that we'll take it."

"Already done."

* * *

"How long you been here?" Leonard asked Officer Johnson as he and Jemma walked into the Daystrom Building.

"We just got here," Johnson told him. "There were no witnesses to the shooting. The incident happened within the last twenty minutes."

"Who found him?" Leonard asked as his partner walked around the security desk where their body was.

"These two," Johnson motioned to a pair of Daystrom employees, "and we've cordoned off the area."

"They killed the cameras," Jemma said, "but I think I can still access the archived footage." She hacked into the system the old fashioned way. "Bones…They went up to the twenty-fifth floor."

"They shut down the elevator," he said as he watched the footage over Jemma's shoulder. "Transmit that security footage to Pike, so we can try and I.D. these guys. Officer Johnson, call for backup and begin evacuation protocols."

"Yes, sir," the kid said.

"And be careful. Perps are still in the building," Leonard reminded the officer.

"You got it," Johnson said before he left them to follow Leonard's orders.

"Do we have a plan?" Jemma asked as the entered the stairwell, guns drawn.

"Nope," he told her. "We got twenty-five floors to figure out one."

"Oh, joy," she chuckled.

They were making their way up the stairs when the whole building shuttered.

"What was that?" Leonard asked Jemma.

"Light bomb," she said as they pushed past some the evacuating civilians and ran through the third floor. "Out of the way, out of the way. Stay down."

"Jem…?"

"I'm picking up biological debris. Officer Johnson was still in the lobby," Jemma said quietly. "Come on. We need to got upstairs." They went back to the stairs, encouraging people to keep evacuating as they went up.

"Police. Keep moving," Leonard said to the few people who stopped in the stairwell.

"What's going on?" a middle aged man asked.

"Sir, we need you to keep moving, continuing out of the building. Go down the stairwell," Leonard told him.

"What's going on out there?" a woman asked.

"Out of the building, please," Jemma said.

"Take the rest of the day off. Move to the stairs, exit the back of the building," Leonard repeated just as his comms came alive.

"Leonard, status?" It was Pike.

"Jem says the building is still structurally sound," he reported to his CO.

"There's damage to the fourth and fifth emergency exits. The southeast stairwell is also blocked," Jemma added.

"McCoy, do not ascend. Continue to direct the employees to the third floor and go there yourself until we know what we're dealing with here," Pike ordered.

"We know what we're dealing with. The assailants are still in the building. Me and Jem are going after them. Buy us some time. You should initiate the protocol. Jam all comm signals coming in and out of the building, cut their communication and get us some backup," Leonard said as they reached the sixth floor.

"Leonard, if we jam the signal, comms won't make it out of the building. We won't be able to communicate. Leave the bu…" Pike tried to repeat his order but the line cut out.

"What was that?" Leonard asked, looking at his phone.

"Me," Jemma shrugged. He gave her a look. "What? It was a boring conversation. Besides, we're not gonna listen to him anyway and he knows it."

"I think I'm starting to rub off on you."

"Looks that way," she said. Then her face flashed. "External comms are down."

* * *

"Any more thoughts on that plan? We're running out of floors, Bones," Jemma said just as they cleared the ninth floor.

"Well, I thought backup would be here by now. Guess we just keep moving up," Leonard told his partner.

"There is another option. The entire air system is interconnected. We just have to make it to the twenty-third floor. There's an access door to the air system there that'll take us up to where these guys are."

"See? Told you we'd come up with a plan," he chuckled and glanced back at his partner, who stopped. "Hey, what's with the disco face? You got something to tell me?"

"Since the signals are now being jammed, every emergency call being placed in this building is bouncing back to me because they can't get out," she told him.

"Answer the calls. We might get some information."

Jemma gave him a nod. "Hello?" she answered. "Ma'am, it's okay. I understand. The police are already on their way. Make your way down to the third floor." They kept moving up the stairs. Then, he heard his own voice, "Hello. I'm Detective Leonard McCoy. Please remain calm." Jemma paused for a second. "Everything's all right. Just take a breath. What is your name?" Jemma asked. "Hi, Paige. What can you tell me about the gunmen?"

"I don't know. They have my sister, and others," the woman –Paige- said on the other end, Jemma must've transferred the call to him. That explains why she was mimicking his voice.

"Listen, Paige, I'm in the building. I need to ask you a few questions, but first I need to know… are you safe? Are you out of harm's way?" he asked.

"I think so. For now," Paige told him.

"Okay, listen to me," Leonard said. "Where are you? What floor are you on?

"I'm on the twenty-fifth floor. I'm in the utility closet," Paige said. Then there was a gunshot and screaming.

"Paige? Paige, what's happening?" he asked.

"They shot him. Lou's dead," Paige said. Leonard shared a look with his partner.

"Paige, can you hold the phone up so I can hear what's going on?" Leonard asked the terrified woman.

" _I really hate to throw out any more hostages. Let's get down to brass tacks, huh_?" a voice said before there was pause. " _First, get your snipers off the roof, and tell those men you have assembled out front to stand down, and keep them away from the building or hostages will continue to fall from the sky._ " Another pause. " _We'd like three VTOLs on the roof standing by, clear airspace from here to the border, and finally, I'd like one fission igniter delivered to me, please_." Another pause, probably Pike telling them that he doesn't have authority to get military-grade tech or Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft. " _Well, then I suggest you contact someone who does_." There was a longer pause. " _More than enough to end your career if they die. You have forty-three minutes_."

"Hello? Are you there?" Paige asked.

"I'm right here, Paige," he said.

"Is anyone coming?" she asked him.

"You just hang tight. We're gonna be with you real soon," Leonard said.

"Did you hear the phone call?" Paige asked.

"Yeah, I did. Thank you. Just hold on a second. I'll be right back," he said before muting the connection. "Is a fission igniter as bad as I think it is?"

His partner nodded, "It's a trigger mechanism for a large explosive device. Megaton level."

"Megaton?" Leonard asked and Jemma nodded again. He unmuted his comm, "Paige, you there? Can you tell me how many hostages they've got up there?"

"About twenty-five or so. At least in this room. It's hard for me to see," Paige told him.

"You're doing great, Paige. How's your sister?" he asked.

"This is all my fault. She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me. She's visiting from out of town. She just stopped by to have lunch, and now she's all alone."

"Paige, can you tell me how many gunmen there are?" Leonard asked her.

"People keep coming and going; I don't know. Five, six, at least. But there were more. I'm sorry, I can't do this. I'm so scared," Paige said. He could hear the hysterics rising in her voice.

"Paige, you ever been ice fishing?" Leonard asked, trying to distract her.

"No."

"When I was eleven years old, my dad took me ice fishing. Now, I'm from Georgia, so ice is not my thing. I still don't know why we went ice fishing when we could've just gone regular fishing but that's not the point. We were heading back and all of a sudden the ice cracked under my feet and I went into the water. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was gonna die. The water was so cold, it was like thousands of needles stinging every part of my body. And then my dad jumped in, and he grabbed me and started dragging me back to shore. And even though we were still in a lot of danger, I felt safe. I felt like, everything was gonna be okay, because I wasn't alone. Paige, you're not alone. I'm with you. Everything is gonna be okay. Do you believe me?"

"Yeah, I do," Paige said.

"Alright, good girl. You just hang in there. We're coming."

* * *

"You know, everyone trips on stairs, it's calculated to occur in one in every two thousand, two hundred and twenty-two occasions," Jemma told him.

"That's very interesting," he chuckled.

"You know what would be interesting, Bones?"

"What?"

"If you told me that ice fishing story again. Was that real?"

"It was. Why does that surprise you?"

"You don't talk about your father. As a matter of fact, I think you've only ever mentioned him once before today," she said.

"It's not an easy subject. He's dead," Leonard sighed as they reached the fifteenth floor.

"I know. Doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about him," Jemma said. She was about to say something else when they heard a series of gunshots. "Sixteen."

"I'll take the right, you take the left," he told her before open the door, their weapons at the ready.

* * *

"Bones, get over here. Floor's clear," Jemma called over his comm. He stepped through the floor, his instincts refusing to let his guard down. That tends to happen after a shootout.

"You okay?" he asked his partner. She was kneeling over a body, a bright purple gash on her temple. "You took one to the head."

"Yeah, ricochet," she muttered as she looked at a small red piece of plastic.

"Whatcha got?" Leonard asked, watching Jemma a little closer than usual.

"I'm not sure. But there's writing on it. Start."

"Start?"

"Yep."

"You I.D. him?" he asked, motioning to the body.

"His name is Michael Demerais. He's a member of the Holy Reclamation Army," she said.

"So they're behind this. Gotta love terrorist groups." Of course, that's when the guy's face flickered.

"Maybe not," Jemma said before she unzipped the dead man's jacket. "It's a face maker." She did another scan. "His name is Gregor Stone. He has a few priors for armed robbery."

"Why would they impersonate members of a radical organization?" he asked. Leonard looked at Jemma as she shook her head like he does when he's trying to refocus. "What's wrong?"

"My dynamic voltage scaling has been damaged by the bullet."

"Try that again a little less complicated."

"In about five minutes, I won't be able to walk."

"What should I do?"

"You're gonna have to fix… fix it," she stuttered over the words. Not good.


	9. Chapter 9

"Alright. Let's sit you down, right here," Leonard said, helping his partner sit against one of the cubical walls. "I'm gonna find something to patch that up."

"Knife in your boot. First aid kit near the emergency exit," she muttered and made a gesture to the wall a dozen feet behind him.

"Alright. Don't move."

"Not… planning on it," Jemma said. He walked over to the fire equipment on the wall and found the first aid kit. Jemma examined the face maker while she waited for him. "Based on the frequency at which these transmit, I detect seven more in the building. If they hide their identities, why not just wear a mask? Why pretend to be something else?"

"That's a good question," he said as he knelt next to her. "Let's try and fix you. I took first aid like everyone else but that was on humans, so you're gonna have to tell me what I'm doing."

"Okay. There's a magenta colored tendon. I need you to cut it," she told him. He doesn't know how he did it but he must've touched something that shocked the shit out of him. "That was lavender."

"You know you got like fifty shades of purple in there," Leonard muttered.

"Not my fault any more than having red blood is yours."

"That's true. Anything I should know before I cut this?"

"Just… be careful. If you cut the wrong thing, I won't reboot," Jemma said. He gave her a nod before he cut the tendon. Jemma's eyes closed and she shut down.

"Jem?" he asked. "Don't do this to me, darlin'."

"Leonard, are you there?" Paige asked over his comm.

"I can hear you, Paige," he replied as he put Jemma's head back together as well as he could and put a bandage on the wound.

"They've moved. They keep going to a corner window, doing something," Paige told him.

"What are they doing?" he asked.

"I don't know. My sister... she's crying. And one of the guards, he keeps looking at her," she told him. Leonard didn't have to guess on why the man was looking at her.

"Look, I promise I'll get to you soon, Paige. What's your sister's name?" Leonard asked.

"Jenna."

"Jenna, huh?" he asked.

"Well, her middle name's Gertrude," Paige said.

"Ouch, that's rough," he said as Jemma started to come back. Her eyes blinked open and she reached up to touch her head. He let out the breath he didn't know he was holding when she looked at him.

"What's yours?" Paige asked.

"Horatio," Leonard said.

Paige let out a quiet chuckle, "Horatio, like the only major character to survive Hamlet, Horatio?"

"Just like. My folks were fans. Horatio was a survivor and Hamlet's most trusted friend. I guess they were setting me up," he chuckled.

"You're someone's most trusted?" Paige asked.

"Well, my captain told me I was his," Leonard said. Jemma pointed at herself and nodded. "My partner says I'm hers too." He stood up and offered Jemma a hand, which she took.

"Leonard, something's happening," Paige told him. "They know you're in the building. They sent a couple guys with giant guns to guard the stairs. Even if you do get up here, how are you gonna get in?"

"You let us worry about that, Paige," he said as he and Jemma made a mad dash for the stairs. They were gonna have to get up as fast and as far as they could go before they were cut off. "Can you let me hear what's going on?"

"Yes," Paige whispered.

" _I'm disappointed in you, Captain Pike. I thought we were getting along so well_ ," the male voice from before said. " _I said no cops_." There was a pause. " _Then how do you explain the two cops my men just killed downstairs_?" Leonard and Jemma smiled at each other. Pike would know that was a bluff the second he heard it. After a tense moment of silence, the voice returned. " _When do I get my fission ignitor_?" Another pause. " _Great. Every minute longer is another body you'll be scraping off the pavement._ "

The next thing they heard was crying.

" _Keep your mouth shut_ ," a different voice said.

"Leonard, I'm going out there. I can't leave Jenna alone," Paige said. That must be her sister crying.

"Paige, that's a bad idea," he said.

"I have to. I have to," Paige told him.

"We're a few floors away," Leonard tried.

"She needs me. I need her. If we're gonna die... I want to be with her. She's my sister. Now is my only chance to blend in without anyone seeing me. I'll leave the call open. You'll be able to hear what's going on. I have to," Paige said. He wanted to talk her out of it but he couldn't blame her for wanting to be with her family.

Leonard and Jemma hugged the wall as they made their way up, when they got to the twentieth floor, they had to leave the stairwell. As promised, Paige left the call open and she must've put her phone somewhere because they could hear everything.

" _Hey, boss...we're getting another delivery. The drone's coming_ ," someone said.

" _I believe in honoring a deal. Stand by. I'll let you know how we're gonna release the hostages,"_ the man from before, who was obviously the leader, said. " _Send the message to the other crew now. They should be ready. It's time to wind this up._ "

"What other crew?" Leonard asked his partner.

"Maybe there are more of them in the building," she said. "Or maybe they're outside the building."

"But the jammer's still on. If they have people outside, they wouldn't be able to talk to each other," he pointed out. Then it hit him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small red chip she found. "Unless they were talking some other way." Jemma shone a light though it and it magnified against the wall. "Start."

"They must be using it as some sort of point-to-point communication with someone in proximity of the building," she said.

"Paige said the man in charge kept going to the window," he said. Before he could voice a thought, the gunmen started talking.

" _I didn't think they'd come through. What if there's a tracking device_?" one of the gunmen asked.

" _We're not taking it anyway. It doesn't matter_ ," the leader said.

"He doesn't want the tech. That doesn't make sense. Why take hostages and negotiate for tech you don't want?" Leonard thought out loud.

"Diversion," Jemma said as she looked out the window. "That building," she pointed to a smaller building down the street from them, "is a precious metal weigh station specializing in palladium."

"It's a heist. Palladium. That would make all this worthwhile," he said.

"Bones, they just activated another light bomb," she told him. "They're gonna kill the hostages."

" _You and the guys pick three hostages_ ," the leader said.

" _Why_?" gunman number two asked.

The leader's voice returned, " _We may need insurance. Let's pack it up_."

"Come on," Leonard said.

"What are you doing?" Jemma asked.

"Sticking to the plan. We're going up."

"No. They know we're here. They're expecting us to come up the stairs. We won't make it to the twenty-fifth floor alive," she said.

"You heard him. We have no choice."

"Except you do, I don't. People's lives are in jeopardy," Jemma told him.

"What, you're gonna go up there alone? Jem, I can't let you…"

"I have to."

"Then I'm coming with you," he told her. "I can't lose another partner." That last part pulled him into a memory.

_"We gotta get out of here, Len," Phil said as he leaned against a car. The VX looked them and rattled off some statistics before leaving the two detectives to die._

"Didn't know you cared," she said.

"Well, I do. There, I admit it. Now, come up with another plan."

"There aren't any other options. You need to get to get to safety. I'm going up there."

"Jem…"

"Hey. It's okay. This… this is what I was built for, Bones." That was the point of synthetic cops, so that human officers didn't get killed doing stupid stuff. She didn't say it but they were both thinking it. "It'll be okay."

Jemma opened the elevator shaft, jumped over to the cable and began pulling herself up. He couldn't just wait around. There had to be something he could do, some way he could make it up there without being seen. If only he had a different face.

"That's it."

He ran back down to sixteen and grabbed the face maker, jacket and rifle from the Stone guy that Jemma killed. He just hoped he got back up before Jemma got herself hurt or worse.

* * *

"What's your name? I've never killed a person I didn't know. But then again, you're not a person. Are you?" the leader asked Jemma as he stood over her with a gun pointed at her head, his foot holding her down.

"Nice of you to show up, Stone," one of the other gunmen said as 'Gregor Stone' with Michael Demarais' face on walked into the room.

"Where the hell have you been? We thought you were dead," the leader asked.

Leonard didn't say anything, just hit the control to drop the face maker. By the time the leader pointed his weapon at him, the detective shot him. Unfortunately, Stone's weapon was out of ammo when the last gunman aimed his weapon at Leonard. He made a dash for Jemma's gun while she moved to the bomb. He shot the last man and looked at his partner.

"You good?" he asked.

"Peachy," she muttered as she removed the explosives from the trigger. "Bomb's disarmed."

"Pike?" he used the leader's comm. "It's McCoy, you copy?"

"McCoy?" his CO asked.

"The hostages are secure. The whole thing is a palladium heist. They got us to block the alarm system. Turn the jammer off!"

He heard Chris issuing orders but he didn't need to listen.

"You came for me," Jemma whispered.

"You would've come for me," he smiled. Leonard looked her over and she must've taken fire from more than one weapon, her shirt was covered in holes and purple 'blood.' "Scotty's gonna kill me."

"I'll tell him to be nice. You did tell me not to come up here alone," she chuckled. "We should get the hostages out."

"Clear!" an officer called as he entered the room.

"Clear!" a VX said. "Detective McCoy, are you alright?"

"Yea. Secure this," Leonard handed the android the part of the bomb that his partner was holding before he helped her up. "Come on, Jem."

"Are we done playing Die Hard?" his partner asked as she held onto his jacket to stay upright.

"You know what Die Hard is?"

"I might've looked through your movie collection when I was at your place," she shrugged. "It's okay but I like the third one better. Too bad Samuel L. Jackson didn't come back for one of the sequels, that whole reluctant buddy cop vibe he had with Bruce Willis was brilliant."

He chuckled, "That's what I said."

* * *

"Leonard?"

He spun around to look at the source of the voice and found a young Hispanic woman standing a few feet behind him. "You must be Paige."

She smiled and gave him a hug, "Thank you."

"No. Thank you. You were very brave. You helped save a lot of lives today," Leonard told her as he let her go.

"Where's your partner?" she asked.

"Oh, she's, uh, she's getting patched up," he said, motioning over to his cruiser where Jemma was sitting on the bumper with Scotty fussing over her.

"She jumped through the vent in the ceiling to save my sister. It's was pretty badass," Paige chuckled as another girl joined them. "This is my sister, Jenna."

"Jenna, it's a pleasure to meet you," Leonard smiled. "I've heard a lot about you." They thanked him again before leaving with one of the officers. Leonard walked over to Jemma and Scotty.

"I should kick your arse, laddie," the engineer said.

"It's not his fault, Scotty," Jemma muttered.

"Don't defend him, lass," Scotty said.

"It was me or the hostages. I'm replaceable," she told their friend.

"No, you're not," Leonard and Scotty said at the same time. The two men shared a look.

"Very sweet, guys, but ultimately untrue."

"Is she gonna be okay?" the detective asked, ignoring his partner.

"Yea. Fixing this is easy but I'll have to run a bunch of extensive diagnostics on her, just in case," Scotty sighed.

"Can it wait? Pike wants to see us?" Leonard told him.

"Aye, but I'm coming with you."

Jemma smiled, "Of course you are."

* * *

Walking into the precinct to applause felt good. It felt like the good old days again, saving the day and all that. Leonard gestured to his partner, she was the hero on this one, he just backed her up. Jemma looked at him and pushed his hand away. The applause died down when he sat at his desk and Jemma leaned against.

"I've got some intel on the perps. Guy behind it all was Gerald Leighton. We linked him and his men to four high-value robberies in the last two years," their CO said as he joined them and gave Jemma an assessing look. She waved off his obvious concern.

"Using police jamming protocol to initiate a palladium heist. Pretty elaborate for a bunch of thieves," Leonard sighed.

"It's going to be a paperwork nightmare," Pike said before handing him the file. "Have fun."

"And I thought you had come down here to thank me," Leonard chuckled.

"For what? Doing your job?" Chris asked. "Just for the record, I did tell you to get out of the building, right?"

"The call cut out, not my fault," Leonard smiled.

"I'm sure I know who's fault it is," the older cop chuckled. "You still have to do it."

"Can it wait? My partner needs to get patched up."

"Go. Take tomorrow off. Good job, you two," Pike said, giving Jemma a soft pat on the shoulder.

"You don't have to go with me," she said.

Leonard shrugged, "You wanna spend the next few hours alone with Scotty?"

"Hey?" the man in question exclaimed.

"You just want me to help with your paperwork," Jemma smiled.

"You are faster than me," Leonard pointed out. "Come on, guys."

The three of them piled into the car to head to Scotty's lab. The engineer rambling on and on about stuff that he had to check on Jemma. Leonard had mostly tuned him out.

"Thank you for what you did back there," she said, ignoring the passenger in the backseat. "You didn't have to come for me."

"Don't mention it," Leonard said.

"You know that story you told Paige, when you fell through the ice as a kid? When that gun was pointed at my head, I felt something similar. I… I didn't want to die. I know it's not the same with me, but..."

"Hey, dead is dead, darlin'," he told her.

"Yeah," she whispered, "I suppose so."

"Are you listening to me?" Scotty asked them after a few minutes.

Jemma smiled, "Every word, Scotty."


	10. Chapter 10

"That doesn't look very comfortable," Jemma said.

"It's not," he told her as he opened his eyes. His partner was standing over him, he fell asleep sitting on the stairs leaning against a wall inside Scotty's lab. "No onesie?"

"It's a bodysuit, if you want to get technical. And no, it would've just been in the way of Scotty fixing my bullet wounds. Besides, I can and do actually wear clothes other than the issued crap the VXs wear all the time. If I need something Scotty requisitions it for me or he just buys it outright," she said.

The only times Leonard has seen Jemma, she would be in the bodysuit that all the androids wore, or she'd be in her 'uniform' which wasn't much different that he wore to work most of the time; a good pair of dark jeans, black shirt, sturdy jacket and black boots. Right now, she was wearing a gray tank top and a pair dark blue department-issued shorts.

"Why is it that I didn't know that?" Leonard asked.

"You never asked and you didn't notice. Not that I have an expressed need to change clothes all the time, it's just that I can," Jemma said with a smile.

"That's very girly of you."

"Well, I am a girl."

"True. You are a girl… with really long legs," he muttered. Seriously, who decided to make her look like a supermodel? The eyes were bad enough but the legs… Leonard has always been a sucker for a nice pair of legs.

"I suppose," she snickered. "Come on."

"Huh?"

"I came over here to move you to the couch. You're gonna be in pain when you wake up as it is."

"And I thought I was looking out for you. Are you all fixed up?"

"We're supposed to look out for each other. And the answer to your question is yes… mostly. I still need to do a full charge before Scotty'll give me an all clear. I decided to check on you first."

"What time is it?" he muttered as Jemma ushered him to Scotty's couch.

"Two-oh-nine," came Jemma's automatic reply. "Here, lay down."

"I have paperwork."

"Already finished and filed. Lay down."

Leonard did what he was told, laying down on the couch without even thinking about it. There was a pillow under his head and his partner pulled off his boots and holster before she covered him with a blanket. He mumbled a thanks as he drifted back to sleep. Just as he hit the edge of unconsciousness, he could swear he felt a pair of soft lips kiss his temple.

* * *

"Did you really just take a bite outta my toast?" he asked his partner.

"I was curious," she shrugged.

"You can't eat," Leonard said.

"I don't eat. Doesn't mean I can't," Jemma retorted. "Ask Scotty."

"Aye, laddie. The JTKs were made to be as human as possible. I won't tell you the details but she has the ability to eat," the engineer told him.

"All this time you just watched me eat without ordering something," the detective chuckled.

"I don't have to eat so I don't feel the need to spend your money on food. Since this is the first time I've seen either of you cook, I figured I'd give it a try. Just be glad I didn't take your bacon. Some of the information I've gathered… people worship the stuff."

"Food of the Gods," Leonard told her with a smile.

"Aye, it makes everything better," Scotty added. "All I need is bacon and Scotch and I'm a happy man." Leonard nodded and the two men clinked their coffee mugs together.

"I'll file that away in the 'things to bribe Scotty with' section of my memory," Jemma smiled.

"How does that work, anyway?" Leonard asked. Jemma and Scotty looked at him. "Your memory."

"Information about cases is attached to the case file and removed from my local cache but I can still access it," she said. "I sort through the information about you guys myself. Stuff the department needs, like your physical and mental stability, I send to Pike. Some stuff is useless, like the smell of the precinct's locker room, I delete that information. Other stuff, I keep."

"Like what?" he asked. Leonard wasn't sure why he never asked her that before. All the information she collects on a daily basis has to go somewhere.

"Things like how you drink your coffee at one hundred and sixty-four degrees with one sugar or the songs that Scotty hums when he's working on something or the scent of Uhura's perfume or Chris' favorite kind of whiskey. The department doesn't need that stuff but I hang on to it," Jemma shrugged. The question must've been on his face. "You're my friends. The information may not matter to someone else in the long run but I can order your coffee or Chris a drink like a pro, sing along with Scotty when I'm here or get Uhura a gift for her birthday without having to ask what she likes."

"So, what other tidbits of information do you hang on to?" he asked.

"None of your business, Detective," she smirked.

"That's how you wanna play it?" Leonard gave her a look.

"Look, I get a bit of everything from everyone I'm around. I don't comment on it just like you don't, it's socially unacceptable to. I do have tons of information about you but that's a given since I spend most of my time with you and I've been to your place. Like I said before, things that are useful, as your friend and partner, I keep. I'm sure there are some things about me that you notice."

"A few," he nodded. Like the way her eyes sparkle in the sunlight. Or how the whole disco face thing makes her features more striking. He wasn't telling her that though. "I see your point."

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Jemma asked him as they sat in an interview room in New Alcatraz.

"I just wanna talk to him," Leonard said. "You didn't have to come."

"Someone has to make sure you don't snap Nero's neck, might as well be me."

Shaun Nero was the man who led the Section 31 attack on the precinct. A man Leonard remembered from the ambush that killed his team. A man who might have some answers about why the terrorist group picked him, what happened to Jocelyn and what's coming next.

"Well, look at what we have here," Nero said as he was led in and sat down. "I don't know which one of you is the fake cop and which is the broken cop but I doubt it matters. What can I do for you, Detective McCoy?"

"We know you were after something in the evidence vault when you assaulted the precinct with Section Thirty-one. The question is: what?" Jemma asked. Leonard made a deal with her not to say anything.

"Got the bot asking your questions? Really?" Nero chuckled.

"I thought you didn't know who was who," his partner quipped. "What were you after?"

"Asked but not answered. The same as the last… I don't know fifty or so times that your captain's been here," the terrorist told them. Pike wasn't shy about his need to figure out what was in the evidence locker, they figured he'd question Nero a few times. "That must be frustrating. Isn't that right, buddy? Jocelyn would be very impressed to see you walking around. You do know that's not her real name? Wouldn't you just love to get your hands around that chick's throat? I know where she is. Would you like to know?"

"We'll find her without your help," Jemma said. Leonard wanted to do something, say something but he knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself if he did. "Why Detective McCoy?"

"Isn't it obvious? Dedicated man who works a lot but no time for romance. Beautiful woman runs into him like that and he thinks he hit the jackpot. She's understanding, doesn't mind his long hours. All the while, she played him like a fiddle and he wanted it so bad that he let her," Nero said.

"Hmm," Jemma said. "We're done."

"That's it?" Nero asked. "He's not even gonna say anything?"

"You want to bait him. It doesn't matter what we ask you. You're not gonna tell us anything unless we get you out of here. You killed cops in our precinct, so that's not gonna happen. We'll find Jocelyn… or whatever her name is without your help. And whatever is in the evidence locker, we'll find that too," his partner said.

"You think we're the only ones after her?" Nero smiled.

"You think we haven't already figured that out. That's cute," Jemma countered before she nudged Leonard's arm. "Come on."

They walked out to the car in silence until Leonard looked at his partner. "What's with the disco face?"

"Chris is calling you but I'm taking it," she told him.

"What he say?"

"The warden called him when we showed up. He wants to talk with us, so he'll be at your place in forty minutes."

* * *

"You talked to Nero without running it past me," his captain said.

"Okay, one, it's my day off. Two, I didn't talk to Nero, I just glared at him. She talked to Nero," Leonard chuckled.

"That's a technicality," Chris said.

"We're cops, we embrace technicalities," Jemma retorted from where she was leaning against the arm of his couch.

"Don't get me started on you. You're supposed to keep him out of trouble," Pike told her.

"You have met him, right? Surly, cantankerous, stubborn. I think he's well within his right to find out why Section Thirty-one tossed a grenade into his life," she said. Apt choice of words. "People talk, he can't hear them but I can. Leonard's a good cop. His friends were killed and he's fighting to regain his career because they infiltrated his life. Since IA obviously thinks he's in on it, nobody is looking for answers but us. If it were you instead of him, you'd want to know why. Hell, I'd want to know why. I'm just trying to help. Besides, I think Nero gave us something."

"What do you mean he gave you something?" the captain asked.

"Someone else is after whatever's in evidence. Jemma played it off like we already knew but I don't think we considered that whatever it is might not be related to Section Thirty-one, they just want it," Leonard said.

"He give you any other clues?" Chris asked.

"Nero referred to it as a 'her'," Jemma told him. "That's gotta mean something."

Pike looked at the pair, "Next time, give me a heads up. We clear?"

"Crystal," they both replied automatically.

"Good," Chris sighed. "I gotta get back. Do me a favor and actually relax for the rest of the day. I didn't give you the shift off so that you could work."

Leonard nodded, "You got it."

* * *

"What do you mean by that? How is 'Superman not a superhero'? He's _the_ superhero," Leonard said. He decided to do some investigating on all the Section 31 stuff he had so far. His partner's declaration that Superman isn't an actual superhero came out of nowhere.

"No, he's an alien and Clark Kent is how he sees humanity. Now, Batman, who has no powers and still fights is the superhero. Black Widow, Hawkeye, Green Arrow… those guys are the superheroes. It's easy to fight when you have powers, but to still fight when you don't is truly heroic."

"Easy for you to say."

"Actually, you and I are a very good example. Someone unloaded a full magazine into my torso and I kept going, someone does that to you and it's a funeral. It's easy for me to do 'stupid and crazy' stuff, I'm durable. It's brave when you do stupid and crazy stuff because it could kill you. I'm like Superman and you're like Batman," Jemma said with a smile.

"I think Wonder Woman would be a more appropriate description."

"Same difference in the context of this conversation, she's not human either," she pointed out.

"Thor?"

"God from another realm."

"Captain America?"

"Super soldier serum."

"Flash?"

"Which one?"

"Barry Allen," he shrugged.

"Augmented human."

"Wolverine?"

"Mutant."

"Iron Man?"

"Super suit."

"Green Lantern?"

"Super ring."

"Black Bolt?"

"Inhuman. Face it, I'm right and you know it."

He chuckled, "I will admit nothing."

"You always say that."

* * *

"When you came to see me six months ago, your emotions were boiling over with hate. You were seething with frustration and disgust at your neighbors, at your fellow workers, at our government. But today, you are a different man. And I am so proud of how far you've come," Doctor Dehner said to the guy sitting next to Leonard in his -mandatory- group therapy session. Ben, the guy's name tag says.

"What a complete and utter waste of my time," Ben huffed. "I could not feel worse. I don't feel at all better. I hate everyone the same. In fact, I think I hate you most."

"Okay. But, Ben, listen to yourself. Listen to your words. Two months ago, you would've been expressing this anger physically. Now you're using your words," Doctor Dehner said.

"When I get these damn bandages off, I'll be physical again," Ben said. He had a cast on one hand and a bandage on the other.

"Well, you should be proud of yourself," Dehner said. "Leonard, what about you? How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling good," he chuckled.

"Really?" the doctor asked incredulously.

"Yeah. I'm feeling… really good," Leonard smiled.

"I don't want to encourage you to be angry but I also don't want you to hide your feelings from us, and more importantly, from yourself," the woman said as she tucked her short blonde hair behind her ear.

"I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a sharer but I talk when I need to. I have a reason for my anger and my friends get it, they let me vent and we move on. I feel good. What can I say?" he shrugged. He wasn't lying. Between Chris and Jemma, he had people to talk to and they listen without holding it against him.

"Leonard, your girlfriend not only abandoned you but she was secretly working for an infamous criminal organization. The same organization that targeted and killed your entire squad in a gun battle, left you for dead and, ultimately, left you with a synthetic leg. Yet, for the past several sessions, in what little you've told us, you're saying that you have no problems and you feel good? Are you really, truly saying that you're being honest?" Dehner asked.

"I didn't say I had no problems. I'm cop, there are criminals, it'll always be a problem. But we all hit bumps in the road, you know? The thing is, I made a new friend who's teaching me the value of being thankful for what I have. I got my health. I got a job, you know, putting bad people away, which I love. I got a new synthetic leg. I'm reconnecting with people. I feel good. I really do," Leonard said. It was mostly the truth. His life was by no means perfect but he was trying to have as much of a positive outlook on it as he could.

"I think we're gonna end the session on that note," Doctor Dehner said. "I'll see you all next week."

Leonard walked out of the building and watched his partner for a few seconds. She was leaning against his car, people watching.

"You gonna keep staring at her?" Ben asked. "I mean, if you're not gonna go for it, I will."

"Don't even think about it," Leonard said before he walked over to the car. "See anything interesting?"

"Life. Real life. How was Angry Class one-oh-one?" Jemma asked.

"It was what it was," he shrugged. "Ready to work?"

"Yep."


	11. Chapter 11

"Victim is Anton Komack. Lived in Westlake. Single gunshot wound to the upper torso. Large caliber round," Jemma said as they walked over the body on the subway platform.

"Whatcha got, Stiles?" he asked the other detective.

"Looks like three shots fired. One through the skylight, one through that guy's celo, and one into Mister Lucky here, which fragmented on the wall. The transit police said he was running. They stopped him on the platform," Stiles told them. "He was agitated, saying 'they're gonna kill me'."

"Three shots, no one saw a shooter?" Leonard asked.

"Correct. And we only recovered one bullet," Stiles said.

Leonard raised an eyebrow, "One bullet?"

"It is possible that a single bullet was responsible for all three impacts. If fired from the perfect angle and traveling along a consistent trajectory, I believe a bullet could have cut through the skylight, continued through the celo, bounced against the wall, ricocheted to the floor, and penetrated the victim's chest cavity," Stiles' VX said.

"Let me get this straight. You're suggesting that a single bullet came through the skylight, ricocheted and bounced its way through the subway, and then just miraculously hit a man square in the chest, who was, according to witnesses, running and screaming 'They're gonna kill me'?" Leonard asked the synthetic.

"While the likelihood seems improbable, there is a point zero-zero-four percent chance that a shooter firing with this morning's five miles per hour northwesterly winds, would release a bullet that would only increase speed until hitting the skylight, where the trajectory would change nominally and the bullet would increase velocity due to air conditioning within the station. A temporary deformation, coupled with inertia and the molecular structure of the wall, the celo, and the floor, would inevitably allow for a fatal impact," the VX said.

"Makes sense to me," Stiles quipped.

Leonard looked at his partner, who was examining the slug, "What do you think?"

"Obviously, this is just a first look, but it appears that there's only residue from the skylight, and residue from the celo. Yet there's no residue from the floor, making the likelihood that it bounced or ricocheted unlikely," Jemma said.

"Detective McCoy, I appreciate you seeking multiple scenarios as to how this homicide occurred. And I understand your partner is trying to assist you. However, I must remind you that your partner is a JTK. A discontinued..." the VX started but Leonard put his hand over the android's mouth.

"Please, Jem, do continue," he said.

"If you look here, there seems to be some sort of circuitry embedded in the slug," she told him. "Now, we can't be sure until we a get a full analysis but these markings don't look like scratches from a bullet hitting a wall."

"Again, Detective McCoy, your JTK is inferior. Its computing power is eighteen billion trilihertz less than my own." That thing did not just call Jem inferior.

Jemma ignored the VX, "It's not something you see every day. On top of that, I genuinely believe that one bullet did do..."

"It does not have the ability," the VX cut her off.

"…all of this damage…" she tried to continue.

"…to rationalize, analyze or deduct. Her intelligence is subpar…" the VX kept talking over Jem.

"Just not a ricochet, as suggested by VX-three-oh-two," Jemma said.

"You are damaging your incident arrest quota. By having an obsolete JTK, you are continuing to listen to a retired old system, believing the rambling and illogical theories of your appropriately canceled partner. If you would like, I can put in a request for you to be partnered with a VX," the thing said and that was it. Leonard drew his weapon and put a bullet in the VX's head. Everything above the neck shattered in a mess of blue and purple pieces.

"What the fuck, McCoy?" Stiles said.

"Jemma, you were saying."

* * *

"Are you out of your mind?" Pike asked him. "You do not draw your weapon, let alone fire it in a public place unless you're in danger!"

"Doesn't fire his weapon? Who cares about him firing his weapon? He's fired it at my VX!" Stiles yelled.

"Come on. Since when do you care about a VX?" Leonard asked.

"What if I put a bullet in Jemma's head?" Stiles said, putting his hand in Leonard's face.

On instinct, Leonard reached out and grabbed it, "Don't look at Jemma! Don't even think about Jemma! Maybe you should've told that damn thing to shut up. My partner may not have his processing power or whatever the hell it was but she's saved more lives in the last month than that thing has since it was activated, including yours."

"Hey, nobody is shooting police officers," Pike said.

"I didn't shoot a police officer. I'm a police officer. You're a police officer. As much as it pains me, Stiles is a police officer. Jemma. Jemma is a police officer. Now, you can dress these damn VXs up to look like cops. You can program 'em to drive a car and shoot a gun like a cop. But they're not cops. They don't think or investigate or have an intuition. They're bullet catchers. And if you force me to work with a faulty machine, then I will dispose of it with the same degree of compassion that I would a toaster that burns my toast."

"What the hell am I gonna do with you, Leonard?" Pike chuckled.

"I could give you a list of things I'd do with him," Stiles said.

"John. I do know what I'm doing," Chris said. "Go grab another VX."

"Wow," Stiles shook his head. "You better watch your ass. Your partner better watch her ass, too."

"Out," Pike ordered. Stiles glared at Leonard again before he left the room. "We've got a problem here, Leonard."

"Yeah, I agree. I mean, what do you think he wants to do to my ass?" the detective asked. He was trying to inject some humor into the situation. Leonard knew that what he did was against policy but it was morally right. You defend your partner. If Phil was still around, he's get a kick outta the whole thing.

"Hardy har har. You know, your anger issues and your short fuse are known way beyond this precinct. You were supposed to participate in therapy, not go and tell Dehner that everything is awesome."

"I didn't say that. I said I was doing good and I am. I am not, however, gonna stand there and let someone disrespect Jemma any more than I would let someone disrespect you."

"You know I'm gonna have to give you a write up for discharging your weapon."

"I know."

"Was it a good shot?"

"Right between the eyes."

"I swear, you're givin' me gray hair. Get back out there, I understand Jemma found the victim's girlfriend. See what you can find out. And don't shoot anymore VXs."

"No promises." Leonard left the office and found his partner waiting for him. "Whatcha got?"

"The victim's girlfriend is Kira Larsen. They've communicated one thousand and three times in the last twelve weeks. She works at Trope Software, same as the victim," Jemma told him.

"Let's go," he said and the pair walked out to the car. As they drove, Leonard could feel her eyes on him. "What?"

"Are we gonna talk about it?" she asked.

"What?"

"You shot a VX for insulting me."

"No. I shot the VX 'cause it wouldn't shut up."

"You do know that I can tell when you're lying, right?" Jemma asked just as his phone rang.

"What's up, Scotty?"

"Jemma was right. There is a power source in this bullet. There are definitely, uh, micro-electro-mechanical systems embedded in the bullets. Active aerodynamics, which can alter the course of the bullets in flight. I've never seen anything like it," Scotty said over the speakers.

"Do we have any idea who might've made it or where it was manufactured?" she asked.

"Not yet, but the MEMS circuits are highly specialized. Whoever fires this can control where this bullet goes. It could literally chase you around a corner. If the shooter wants you dead, the bullet will find you," the engineer told them.

"Thanks, Scotty," Leonard said.

"No problem, laddie. Just do me a favor and do not destroy any more VXs."

"Well, program them not to insult people and we'll be fine," Leonard told him.

"People… You mean Jemma?" Scotty asked. When Leonard answered in the affirmative, Scotty laughed. "Well, then. Nice shot. Don't do it again."

"You were saying?" Jemma asked as soon as Scotty cut the connection.

"I didn't say anything."

"Actions speak louder than words. And bullets… they talk a lot."

* * *

"Anton would never hurt anyone in his life. Who would want to hurt him?" Kira asked.

"Was he involved in any underground activities? Black market? Drugs? Did he owe any money?" Leonard asked. He and Jemma split up, he's talking to the girlfriend while his partner gets everything she can from the bosses.

"No. Nothing like that Anton was a gamer. The most trouble he got himself into was playing MMOs," she told him.

"We're trying to find out information about the weapon he was killed with. When was the last time you heard from him?" he asked.

"Uh, he left me a message," Kira told him as she accessed her voicemail.

" _Hey, K. You must be asleep. Uh, of course you are. Anyway, um, forget looking for the bio-stamp on the, uh...on the three-eighteen liquifile. I found it. It's on my arm. Anyway, uh…" There was knocking. "I gotta go. Love you. See you tomorrow_." That was the last message from Anton.

"He seems distracted," Leonard said.

"That's how he always is when he's working," Kira said, getting lost in her thoughts.

"Kira, I need you to think. Were there any new people in his life?"

"He doesn't know a lot of people outside of work," she said.

Leonard nodded, "Anything out of the ordinary?"

"He'd been meeting with a headhunter."

"Was he looking to change jobs?"

"No, when you have skills like Anton, you have options."

"Do you remember the name?" he asked.

"Um... he, uh... It was a woman. I think her name was Natalie. She worked for a recruitment company called Kinsey."

* * *

"I think I know how Anton Komack was killed," Jemma said as they walked out of the building. "Anton's software exploits an obscure bug in the location-tracking protocols used by nearly all sensors. Phones, cameras, retinal scanners, bio-stamps, even DNA readers, enabling them all to communicate in real time to precisely track virtually any person at any time."

"So Anton created the guidance system for the bullet?" he asked.

"That's what it looks like," she said as they got in the car. "Scotty's calling me."

"I have some information about where the bullet came from," the engineer said over the car's speakers. "According to Interpol, the MEMS circuit in the slug was a Russian Army design. A batch was stolen from a Ukrainian armory three months ago. And the theft was linked to a group called Terra Prime. A new weapon for the black market. Self-guided bullets that can track down and kill anyone."

"Anton sold his software to arms dealers," Leonard glanced at his partner.

"And they killed him with it."

Scotty sighed, "Aye, what a world."

* * *

"So, Anton sells his genius tracking software to gun runners," Stiles said.

"Who take it and use it to create a guidance system for a new kind of bullet that can track down anyone wherever they are," Uhura added.

"And once they get what they needed from Anton, they kill him with it," Leonard finished.

"How do we know they haven't mass-produced them already?" Stiles asked.

"We don't," Leonard sighed.

"Well, they just killed the man who designed the guidance system. They wouldn't have done that unless R & D was already done," Uhura pointed out. "We need to find these dealers and contain this."

"We've already notified the FBI and DHS," Jemma told them.

"I'll check Anton's financials. Maybe we can find out who he sold the software to, but I'm not optimistic. He was in tech, he'd know how to hide money," Uhura said.

"I'd be happy to help," Jemma said.

"Don't stress yourself, bot," Stiles said sarcastically before looking at Uhura. "There's an easier way. Your daddy's really good at hiding money, right? Why don't we just ask him how it's done?"

"Stand up when you say that," Uhura told him. "Oh, wait, you are." Leonard was gonna have to buy her a drink for that one.

"Yeah, well, my parents didn't have the money to make me taller. Or pretty," Stiles told her.

"Even if you were genetically enhanced, you would only be a taller jerk," Uhura replied.

"Anton's girlfriend said he'd been meeting a headhunter from a company called Kinsey. It was the only new thing in his life. All we have is her first name, Natalie." Leonard looked at his partner, "Can you check it out?"

"There's no Natalie currently employed by Kinsey," she told him.

"Maybe Kira got the name wrong," he said, mostly to himself.

"Or maybe she's lying," Jemma said. Of course she heard him. "Let's go ask her."

"Let's."

* * *

"Kira. We need to talk. We suspect Anton was selling your company's tech to people who killed him with it. The headhunter you mentioned, Natalie? We checked at Kinsey, she doesn't exist. You sure you got her name right?" Leonard asked. Kira was outside the office getting coffee.

"No, I'm not absolutely sure," Kira told him.

"How did you get her name?" Jemma asked.

"I bumped into them on the street near our office, a couple weeks ago. They were coming back from lunch. She had blonde hair, Slavic accent. Anton introduced her," Kira said.

"Could you identify her if you saw her?" he asked.

"I think so, yes."

"Bones…" Jemma said, she was looking past him.

"What?"

"Get down," his partner yelled, pushing him to the ground and shielding Kira with her body. Both women hit the ground half a second later.

"Kira, you okay?" he asked. She nodded. "Jem, talk to me."

"I'm okay," Jemma said as she pushed herself up. There was a single gunshot wound to her side. "I guess we know who our bad guys are after now."


	12. Chapter 12

"You sure you're okay?" Leonard asked his partner.

"Nothing major. Scotty can patch it up when we get to the precinct. Need a new shirt though," she gave him a reassuring smile as they walked over to the truck that Kira was in. As soon as he opened the door, the woman jumped.

"Hey, it's okay, it's okay. You're safe in here, Kira. This truck is made of titanium. They can't track you in here," he said.

"I'd be dead if it weren't for you," Kira said to Jemma. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," his partner smiled.

"Kira, you must know something about Anton. That's why they tried to kill you," he said.

"I don't," Kira shook her head.

"If you're holding anything back, now is the time to tell us," Leonard tried again, just to be sure.

"I don't. I don't know anything. I don't know why they would want me dead, too," Kira told him. Leonard doesn't know why, but he believes her.

"Okay. We're gonna transfer you to a safe house, a place where you can't be tracked," he said.

"I'm not going anywhere without my daughter. My best friend Janet has her. I need to go see her right now. She'll worry if I don't go home," she told them.

"Okay. We'll bring her to you," Leonard said. "What's her name?"

"Joanna."

He glanced at Jemma and she nodded. "I'll call Pike."

* * *

"We've got men outside. You'll be safe here," Leonard told Kira. They got her, her daughter and her best friend settled in an underground safehouse. As long as they stayed there, they should be fine until Leonard and the others found the bad guys.

"For now, maybe, but they will find me. You have no idea. That's what this technology is designed to do," Kira told him.

"I've seen what this technology can do. We're gonna find them," he told her.

"Maybe. Maybe not. I think… I think I should just go to a scrubber. Whatever they think I know, I'll just erase," she said. "I need to be here for Jo. She's all that I've got. And maybe this way they'll leave me alone... when I'm no longer a threat to them."

"It doesn't work like that. It wouldn't matter. Look, forgetting Anton is not the answer here," Leonard said.

"Are you one of those anti-scrubbers or something?"

"I don't agree with scrubbing, no, but I won't hold it against someone if they did it." Scrubbing was the opposite of recollecting, it was basically a memory wipe. As someone who's been trying to fill the gaps in his memory, the idea of just erasing stuff didn't sit well with Leonard at all. There were things that he –and Jemma- would give anything to get back.

"Well, maybe if your life depended on it, you would," Kira muttered.

"You have more faith in the tech finding you than me stopping it. I understand that. But I need you to trust me."

"Can you guarantee that you can protect us?" she asked, both of them glancing at her daughter. The seven year old with the big brown curls was jumping on the bed while Janet made sure she didn't fall.

"No, I can't," he sighed. "Look, I know you're worried about your daughter, but if this technology gets out, it'll change the world we live in. It'll change the world that she lives in forever. You know something. We just gotta figure out what it is. But I can promise you that my partner and I will do everything we can to protect you."

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

"We have a plan to draw them out but we're gonna need your help."

* * *

"Anton Komack's car has parking violations outside Merit Bank. Once, three weeks ago, and then again a week after that. We checked surveillance, and he did go inside the bank. Now, there was no account under his name, but there was one under a 'James Komack'. James is Anton's middle name," Uhura told him.

"That's it. Did you find the money he got for selling the software?" he asked.

"No, there were no credits in the account, but there was a safe-deposit box. Maybe the creds are in there. I'll text you the address," Uhura said.

"Thank, Nyota, we'll check it out," Leonard said. "As soon as Scotty's done with my partner."

"We're done, laddie," Scotty said as he and Jemma walked into the bullpen. "Can you not get into another shootout?"

"Tell the criminals not to shoot at innocent people," Leonard chuckled. "Come on, Jem, we got a lead."

* * *

"No credit chip," Jim said. "He wasn't hiding any money. A lot of personal effects."

"Video stick," Leonard said as they looked though Komack's safe-deposit box.

"It's full," she told him.

"Can you play it?" he asked. Jemma put the small storage device in his phone.

" _We can get to her at any time. I think you know that. Don't make a mistake that can't be undone_. _Deliver the third part of the design schematic by Thursday. There will be no more time_."

"Anton wasn't facilitating an arms deal. He was being extorted," Leonard said as they watched the videos of Kira and Joanna that played along with the message.

"Bones, I just received notification that Kira Larsen has left the secure building five minutes ago. She's gone."

* * *

"Look, these guys aren't gonna stop until they find Kira. Until we find her, the only lie we have left to chase is Natalie. Anton lied about her for a reason. Kira said she saw them outside and near their office two weeks ago coming back from lunch," Leonard said once they were back at the precinct. "We know what Anton and Kira look like. So why not use facial rec to search for them and another woman in the vicinity of their office a couple weeks ago?"

"There's a lot of faces in the city. I could do it but it'll take more time than we have," Jemma told him.

"There's something you need to see," Pike told them. Leonard and Jemma joined Chris, Stiles and Uhura in one of the small conference rooms, they were watching a video. "DHS was able to pull this off a black site which they were able to trace back as far as Estonia."

Jemma's face lit up, "The language is Chechen. 'With a maximum range of two kilometers, the Magic Bullet can locate a single human target with an accuracy of twenty-five centimeters. Fast, precise, and with little or no risk to operator exposure, the Magic Bullet is also a bargain at the designated price per round'."

"Tie up a loose end and make an infomercial out of it. That's pretty cold," Uhura sighed.

Stiles glanced at her, "It's cost effective."

"Captain, we just intercepted a signal from Kira Larsen's personal comm," one of the VXs said.

"Bring it up," Pike told the android. They watched the screen change to a map. Kira's location blinked bright red.

"Looks like Kira's following your plan, Bones," Jemma said. "She's underground. Thirty-four thirty-five Randall Avenue."

"Go. I'll send backup," Pike told them. Leonard and Jemma practically ran out of the room. If they don't get to her in time, these people will kill her.

"What's listed in the building?" Leonard asked his partner as he sped through the city.

"It's listed as a plumbing supply store, closed for the last eleven months," Jem said. "Take the next left."

"There's at least half a dozen memory shops on that block. Bet she's gone to a scrubber."

* * *

"We gotta go. We don't have much time," Leonard told Kira.

"I want them to find me. I want them to find me! And when they get here, they can watch me having my memory scrubbed! I don't know why they're trying to kill me, but I know it's gotta have something to do with Anton! I told you, if I get rid of everything in my head about him, they'll leave me alone," she yelled at him.

"It wouldn't matter, Kira. Look, we think we know why they tried to kill you. That woman you saw Anton with, Natalie, we believe she's an arms dealer, and you can identify her," he said.

"Bones, we need to hurry," Jemma said from the corridor outside the 'exam' room he was in with Kira.

"Let's go," Leonard told his witness. She gave him a look then pulled the leads off her head and grabbed her bag. They were almost out the door when the shooting started. "Get down!"

"Backup's a minute out," Jemma called from the room across the hall.

"Great, that should give them just enough time to kill us," he grumbled. "We're sitting ducks."

"I'll draw their fire," his partner told him, drawing her second weapon from the holster on the small of her back.

Their eyes locked for a second and she gave him a nod before she moved out into the open. Natalie's partner moved out of cover just enough for Leonard to shoot him. Natalie popped out of her cover and Jem took two shots, one in the leg, one in the shoulder.

"Mine's still alive," Jemma called.

"Mine's done," he said as he checked the male shooter.

"Police. Get your hands up. Hands up!" a VX yelled as a team arrived, guns drawn.

"We're all clear!" Leonard called.

The VX must've scanned him because it lowered it's weapon, "Roger, Detective McCoy."

"Kira," he said as she buried her face in his shoulder. "You're okay. You're okay. Officer, get her out of here." Leonard passed Kira over to one of the uniformed officers and looked around for his partner. He spotted her leaning against the door frame examining her jacket. "You got shot again." Jemma nodded. "You've certainly taken your fair share today."

"I'll have Scotty send you the bill," she chuckled.

"Please don't," he smiled.

"Okay, but you're buying me a new jacket. I liked this one."

* * *

"Can I run something by you, Chris?" Leonard asked his CO at the end of shift. "It's about Jem."

"Yea, what's up?"

Leonard sighed, "I think she should get paid."

"What?"

"Whenever she needs something, Scotty has to file paperwork or we buy it. Not that I mind, but she works the same hours I do and she no access to any funds for anything."

"What do you mean?"

"She said something earlier about replacing her jacket and it made me think. Jemma doesn't wear combat gear like the VXs, she wears clothes like the rest of us. She got shot a couple times today, rec order only covers half of what she was wearing and doesn't account for the fact that she has preferences. Same thing happened after Daystrom."

"So, she wants to buy clothes?" Chris asked with a look of confusion and amusement.

Leonard chuckled, "She doesn't want to, but she should have the option and opportunity to. While we're at it, she shouldn't have to live with the damn VXs either."

"She can't just live without supervision," Pike said.

"Give her one of the empty offices upstairs, let her live in the lab with Scotty, hell, I'll put her up if I have to. She's miserable living with them, there's no privacy and they 'glare at her with their lifeless eyes…' her words. You should go down there some time, see for yourself. I did, it's depressing. Unlike the VXs, she's fully self-aware, intelligent and, while we can't measure her level of consciousness, we both know it's there. She should have some say in where she lives just like we do."

"Huh," Chris sighed. "I don't think I've ever thought of it like that."

"I don't think anyone other than Scotty has. The GSKs and JTKs were created to be as human as possible. Everyone freaked out when they were just like us, so the whole line got shelved. Nobody thought about the ethics of making androids with souls and then getting rid of them. They're considered property, which isn't a problem for maintenance bots or sex bots or the VXs… but those that have unique identities like Jem… it's probably why some of them snapped. If you were being treated like a machine, wouldn't you?"

"I told you Jemma was special."

"You did. So why is the department treating her like the VXs? You treat her like a cop, so do I, so do Uhura and Scotty. As far as I'm concerned, Jemma's a person just like the rest of us."

"I can't promise anything but I'll look into it."

"Thanks. Don't tell her that I said something," Leonard sighed, "she'll never let me hear the end of it."

"Tell her what?"

* * *

"What's wrong with Pike?" Uhura asked at the beginning of shift a few days after Leonard talked to Chris.

"No idea," Stiles shrugged. Jemma walked into the bullpen chuckling. "You know what's up with the boss?"

"He went downstairs," she smiled.

"So?" Stiles asked.

"You ever see a VX without it's gear on?" Jemma asked them. They all told her no. "Life-sized Ken dolls."

"You mean…?" Leonard asked, making a gesture to his pelvic area. Jem nodded. "Wow. That's… wow."

"Chris went down there and got an eyeful," his partner was trying not to outright laugh but she wasn't doing a very good job. "I've never seen him so… perplexed. He's gonna have that mental picture for a while." After that, she lost it and let out the most beautiful laugh he's ever heard.

"Are you like Barbie?" Stiles asked. Leonard, Jemma and Uhura all glared at him. "What?"

"That's none of your business, John," Uhura told the detective. Jemma kept a firm hand on Leonard's shoulder to keep him in his seat. "You don't ask something like that. Ever."

"I don't what the big deal is, it's just a bot," Stiles shrugged.

"Come on, Bones. Let's take a drive," Jemma said pushing him away from the bullpen and towards the exit. He made a move towards Stiles but Jemma wrapped her arm around his middle and pulled him away. "You're lucky I'm not that automaton who gets your coffee, Stiles, otherwise I would let him kick your ass."

* * *

"Calm down," Jemma said.

"He… he… Why would he ask you something like that? And callin' you 'just a bot.' What the hell was that?"

"He's an asshole," she chuckled from the driver's seat. "We know this."

"That does not make it okay," he grumbled. "You should've let me punch him."

"So you could get in trouble and we both get desk duty? I don't think so," Jemma snickered.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"I'm trying not to but you don't make it easy," she told him. He gave her a look. "It's just… for someone who doesn't like my kind, you're very protective of me. I mean, you shot a VX last week and now you wanna punch Stiles."

"You're my friend," he said with a shrug. It was a little more than that but he wasn't giving voice to the thought that they could be… whatever they could be.

"Am I?"

"Yes. And I don't let people disrespect my friends. Besides, asking people what's in their pants is just rude." Even if you're curious.

"So, I shouldn't ask?" Jemma quipped. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. She glanced at him and smiled. "I'm kidding."

"Uh huh."

"I am. It's not like I don't know."

"Know what? What's in someone's pants?"

"No one specific. I'm talking in general," she chuckled.

"Like you need that info."

"Hey! My designer was very thoughtful, thank you very much. Unlike the VXs, I'm an anatomically correct, thirty year old female. I can do a lot that they can't do including…"

"Don't tell me, I do not need to know," Leonard said the words but he didn't believe them one bit. He was actually curious.

"Your pulse just jumped."

"I'm angry."

Jemma laughed, "Keep telling yourself that."


	13. Chapter 13

Leonard woke with a start. He's no stranger to nightmares but the one he just had was different, instead of Phil dying in the ambush, it was Jemma. The VXs left him and she shielded his body with hers, protecting him from the blast as much as she could. When the smoke cleared, she was gone. The only evidence of her was the purple blood on his hands.

He wasn't sure what the meant. Was he worried that something would happen to her? Yes. Did the change in his nightmare mean that something was coming? He wasn't sure. There's no way he was asking Doctors Adams or Dehner. He might have to run it by Chris if he couldn't figure out. Or talk to Jemma. She'd tease him about it but she wouldn't hold it against him.

* * *

"Alright, listen up," Stiles told everyone. "Last night's solar flare knocked out power approximately six hours ago. In accordance with the rolling blackouts, we're going to start using auxiliary power in about two minutes."

"What genius put you in charge?" Leonard asked the question on the tip of everybody's tongue.

"Captain Pike did," the other detective did. "And as our energy marshal, I must inform you that our charge ration protocol is in effect. All androids are being charged at a priority basis. That means not all of your androids are gonna be fully charged. As long as your androids are in the green level on the energy, then they're cleared for duty. And I don't want to hear any complaining that your synthetics are running too slow. That includes you, McCoy. And your leg."

"Hey, pal, I've had it up to here with you," Leonard retorted, holding his hand up to his chest. Short jokes never get old.

"Why don't you slip into something more comfortable," Stiles said, "like a coma?" Leonard didn't get the chance to do anything about that stupid comment since his partner came out of nowhere and punched Stiles right in the face. "What the hell was that for?"

"You insulted my partner, you gave the VXs charge priority and you're an asshole. Pick one," Jemma told him. Most of the cops in the room snickered. Leonard actually inhaled his coffee. Jemma looked more like him in this moment than he did. "I barely got half a charge and it messes with my systems." She hasn't been able to charge in a few days thanks to the case they'd been working, now it was biting them in the ass.

"It's policy," Stiles told her. "Maybe you should sit this shift out."

"Hey, I'd take a partially charged JTK over a fully charged VX any day," Leonard said as he pulled his jacket on and put a hand on his partner's back. "Come on, Jem."

"This charging thing's unacceptable, Bones," she grumbled as he practically pushed her out of the precinct. Not that he could actually move her unless she let him, Jemma was the stronger half of the pair. "It's not fair."

"You, uh, you get a little cranky when you don't get enough sleep, huh?" he asked when they got into the car.

"My personality interface is the first thing that suffers when I start to lose power. Then all my other systems gradually shutdown in an effort to save energy. It's infuriating! VXs always take priority. It's like they're sitting in first class and I… I'm sitting in coach with a kid kicking my seat."

"Yeah, I tell you, that coach is the pits. All those people and you got to share the same tiny bathroom."

"Really, that's what you wanna talk about? The tiny bathroom?" she glared at him. It was a pretty impressive glare too. "I do more work than those… things and they get priority. What else do I have to do before people see me as me?" She took an unnecessary breath. "I need my own space."

"Working on it," Leonard said.

"What? Really?"

"Yes, really," he chuckled. "I know I don't act like it, but I do listen when you talk. I didn't say anything because I'm still waiting for the final word."

"You're not as grumpy as you let everybody think you are. Thank you."

"Keep that to yourself. And don't thank me until we get you out of the land of the Ken dolls."

* * *

"We have eyes on a vehicle matching the description of the bank robber's car," Jemma alerted dispatch before she activated the external comm on the cruiser. "Police! Pull over." The car kept going. "Police! Pull over!"

"We're gonna have to shut him down," he told her. Jem lowered her window, aimed the localized EMP that's stored in the cruiser's glove-box at the other car and took the shot just as Leonard spun them in front of it, shutting it's engine off.

The man in the car got out and tried to run but Jemma grabbed him before he could get far. "Bones, there's something around his neck."

"What is it?" Leonard asked.

"They said it was a bomb," the man, Ramon according to his car's registration, told them.

"Bones, back up," she said as she looked the device over.

"Somebody put this on me," Ramon said. "I need to follow instructions. I need the code to shut it off."

"It is a bomb," Jemma whispered.

"Who did this to you?" Leonard asked. If they can't stop this thing, there wasn't gonna be another chance to ask questions.

"Uh, a window washer. He had some kind of chemical," the man said. "Get it off me!"

"Jem, can you disarm it?"

"It would take me at least five minutes to find the lead wire," she told him. The timer has less than a minute. "There's not enough time. Put up the shield."

"Please," Ramon begged.

"Bones. Put up the shield," Jemma repeated. The Shield is this small handheld device that most officers had in their cars. Once activated, the shield puts up a forcefield that, among other things, can contain a bomb blast inside the field or protect someone from a blast outside it.

"I'm sorry," Leonard said as he activated the small device. "We will find who did this to you. I promise, we will find them." The detective glanced at his partner, hoping that she could pull off a miracle.

"There's nothing I can do," she said softly. Leonard put the shield on the ground next to Ramon and his partner pulled him back to take cover by the car. The forcefield formed a dome over Ramon and a few seconds later the bomb went off. Jemma watched as the carnage inside the shield dissipated, her emotions open to him like they've never been. She was devastated. "There just wasn't enough time."

* * *

"He said something about a window washer and a chemical," Leonard said as they walked back to the car. The bomb squad gave them the all clear. "Can you detect anything?"

"Traces of fetanyl oxide. A toxin that causes temporary blackouts," Jemma told him.

"That stuff's no joke," he sighed as he went through Ramon's car. "Found the data recorder. Looks like the EMP blast fried the circuits. It'll have to be reconstructed. Let's get that to Scotty ASAP and see where the car has been." Leonard handed his partner the small plastic and metal card. "Got a credit chip. Any money on it?"

"Four hundred and twenty-seven thousand credits," Jemma said, the lights under her skin shining blue, green and yellow.

"You okay, your disco face is bunch of different colors?"

"Visual indicator of my lack of power. My eyes'll do it too once I get under twenty percent. What's that on the dash?"

"A camera. They're all over the car," he said as he peeled the tiny disk off the dashboard and looked around.

"Someone was watching this… or filming it. That's sick," she said, the disgust in her voice was clear as day. "Who does that?"

"I don't know," he sighed as he phone rang. "McCoy."

"What are we dealing with, a victim or a criminal?" Pike asked over comm.

"Victim, but he definitely robbed the bank, we found the credits. He claimed that someone attached the bomb to him. We found traces of fetanyl oxide, and the whole car is covered in cameras," Leonard told his CO.

"You mean someone was watching this?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, or filming it. He said he needed a code to disarm the bomb, which he was gonna get if he followed instructions," Leonard sighed.

"Instructions? From the bomber?"

"I'm guessing. We also found the data recorder for the car. We're getting it to Scotty."

"Alright, McCoy. Keep me posted," Pike told him.

"Can do."

* * *

Apparently, the cameras they found were there because someone posted the whole thing with Ramon Medina on the dark net for entertainment. Uhura sent them the footage but Leonard couldn't watch it. Between the blast that put him into a coma and witnessing this one firsthand, it hit a little too close to home. He was surprised that he didn't flashback.

"What kind of bomb was it?" Leonard asked Scotty.

"Propylene oxide. The filler is typical, but the wiring is very sophisticated. Multiple decoys. I'm still trying to reconstruct it," the engineer told him as he hooked something onto Jemma's neck. Leonard gave them a look. "Charger. It's not gonna give her as much power as the dock does but it should keep her going until the end of shift. It's a jolt of energy, like a shot of espresso."

"Right," the detective sighed. "What's your take on all this?"

"She should've never been moved into housing with the VXs to begin with. Because she's the older model, they'll always get front-of-line privileges. Which is bloody ridiculous, since she's the only one with feelings."

"I meant the case, Scotty, but your insight is enlightening," Leonard chuckled.

"Hey, Humans, off! Trying to charge over here," Jemma said. He was trying not to laugh, but she was funny when she was short on power.

"Sorry, lass. Anyway, I ran a recovery program on the data recorder you found in the car. I was able to reconstruct the communications," Scotty told him and hit a command on his computer.

" _Follow my instructions if you want to live_ ," an electronic voice said. There were directions to rob the bank, to drive places, to run from the police.

"And these messages were transmitted to Mister Medina, I believe, by the bomber, when he took over the vehicle's comm system. Whoever did this has state of the art security software," Scotty said.

"Wait a minute, there's an address," Leonard said. "'Ninety-one hundred Altman Drive.' This must be where he was headed."

"And one last instruction," Scotty said, reading the screen. "'Select B-forty-seven for the code.'"

"We should check it out," Jemma said as she walked over to them looking better than she did when they got there.

"Hey, who's a happy toaster?" Leonard asked with a smile. Jemma flipped him off. "Don't be like that, Jem. This is funny, I'm usually the one with emotional problems."

"I learn from the best," she quipped.

He put his hands over his heart, "Ouch, darlin', that hurts."

"And here I thought you had thicker skin," Jemma smiled. "When we stopped Ramon, that timer was under a minute. That address is ten miles away. He would've never made it even if we hadn't pulled him over."

"So, let's go," Leonard said.

"Thanks for the juice, Scotty," she said to their friend.

"Anytime, lass."

* * *

"Place is clear. This jukebox is the only thing on," his partner said as they cleared the empty bar.

"Any explosives?" he asked.

"None, it's all clear," she told him. "The message said to enter B-forty-seven."

Leonard pressed the two buttons and the screen on the machine came on. ' _Too bad about Ramon. He didn't make it. But you did. Welcome to the show_.'

"He's watching us," Leonard said. "He knew we'd see the instructions. Knew we'd come here." A picture of a woman come on the screen.

"Her name is Jeannie Hartman. She's the next victim," Jemma said. The screen changed again. ' _If you're going to save her… It has to be you, and only you. Go_.'

The pair rushed to the car, Jemma trying to get a location on Jeannie. According to Pike, Jeannie worked at a flower shop with her father, so that's who Jemma called.

"Mister Hartman, we believe your daughter may be in danger. How long ago did Jeannie leave the shop?" his partner asked.

"It fifteen minutes or so. I tried calling but she's not answering," the man said over the car's speakers.

"Do you have a location on the van?" Leonard asked.

"GPS says it stopped on Fuller Road, uh, at Morris Park," Mister Hartman told them.

"We know where that is," Leonard said. "We're close."

"What do you remember about the caller?" Jemma asked.

"I could barely hear him, there was some kind of static. My daughter, is she all right?" the man asked them.

"We're gonna make sure she is," Jemma said before closing the call. Perfect timing too, Pike was calling them.

"Guys, we found the live broadcast. She's online right now," their CO said.

"We're almost there," he told Chris, just another block. Leonard pulled their car into one of the parking spots for emergency vehicles and hopped out.

"She's in the gazebo," Pike told them. Jemma took off half a second before he did. Even though she wasn't fully powered, she was still faster than him.

"Jeannie? I'm Detective Leonard McCoy. This is my partner, Jemma. We're here to help, okay?" he told the woman who was holding red-orange roses while she danced in a small circle with the bomb around her neck.

"Scotty, we got another victim wired with explosives," Jemma said. "I'm gonna need your help so I can preserve processing power. I'll patch you in." The collar beeped. His partner looked at Jeannie. "Just be as still as you can."

"I don't know if you should be doing this," Leonard said. It wasn't that he didn't trust Jemma, at this point, she was near the top of the short list under his mother and Pike, but she was off today.

"He… he said to follow instructions," Jeannie told them.

"It's gonna be okay," he tried to reassure her as Jemma examined the bomb. "I promise. I know you're scared. Try and stay calm."

"We're gonna get this thing off of you. If I say anything inappropriate, please forgive me, it's one of those days," his partner chuckled and it actually relieved some of the tension.

"This requires a very specific series of sequential maneuvers, which I will talk you through," Scotty said over the comms.

"Mind if I see that?" Leonard asked Jeannie, who handed him the phone in her hand. ' _Better hurry, Detective McCoy. Everyone is watching_.'

"Please don't let me die," Jeannie pleaded.

"You're doing really great," he told her. "Just relax, okay? We're gonna have you out of here in a minute." There was another beep and Leonard looked at Jem. She glanced up at him but didn't say anything.

"I know who did this," Jeannie told them. "His name is Simon. I, um I met him online. He wanted me to meet him at this park."

"Do you have a last name?" Leonard asked.

"No, I don't know any of that," Jeannie said. "I just know his online dating profile."

"I can use a laser to slice through the locking mechanism," Jemma said.

"Don't. It'll disrupt the circuit and set off the detonator. Can you see a silver panel closest to the timer?" Scotty asked.

"Yes, I see it," his partner said.

"You need to get to the wires underneath without cutting any of them," the engineer told her.

"Okay. I need you to be very still, Jeannie," Jemma said.

"You're doing good," Leonard said. "So tell me, this guy, what does he look like?"

Jeannie glanced up at him, "Um, he was tall, um, six feet, maybe, with dark hair."

"How long ago did you meet him?"

"A couple months. He brought me a bouquet of red-orange roses. But he was so creepy, you know? I just got this bad feeling, so when he went to the car to get the picnic basket, I, um, I took off," Jeannie told him. "I left the roses on the bench. And that's why he's making me hold them, you know. It's like he's forcing me to go on this date with him. I just wanted to meet somebody. I mean, I deliver flowers to people that are in love every single day… and then I go home by myself."

"Listen to me. I promise you, tomorrow you're gonna have a great story to tell," he told her.

"I've removed the casing. There's a red wire that's running into the timer," Jemma told Scotty.

"Uh, probably a decoy. Look for the initiator," the engineer told her.

"Bones, put up the shield," Jemma said. "Put it up and step back."

He looked at his partner before making the dumbest decision ever. "Four hands are better than two. Come on. Tell me what to do."

"You sure?" she asked. He gave her a nod. "You see these red and yellow wires?"

"Yes," Leonard said. There were a bunch of wires but he saw the ones she was talking about.

"Pull them apart without touching the green wire," she instructed. "I need you to hold them open so I can clip the battery in between. Just keep still, Jeannie." Leonard held the two wires back but he couldn't tell what was going on past that. He looked at his partner, she looked at him. "Here goes." Jemma clipped the lead wire. There was some whirring and a beep, the timer stopped. "Bomb's disarmed. We're clear."

"We're good?" he asked.

"We're good," Jemma hugged him. Actually wrapped arms around him in a hug. It was a nice hug too. "Let's get this thing off of her."

Leonard nodded mutely. The feeling of Jem in his arms was something he had no words for. He was so screwed.


	14. Chapter 14

"You okay? You're quiet," Jemma said as they walked into the precinct.

"I'm fine," he told her.

Leonard doesn't know why that hug was getting to him. It wasn't the first time they've touched each other and it certainly wasn't gonna be the last, there was just something about it that had his attention. Jemma's emotions were off. That had to be it. Instead of controlling her feelings, they've been on full display today. Which meant that she cares about him. He doesn't know how much or in what way but she does and, today, she wasn't afraid to show him.

She wasn't alone in her feelings. Leonard cared about her too. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Jemma stopped being just his partner and friend, she was more than that. How much more, he didn't know but she was right, people talking about her pissed him off and people disrespecting her made him want to hit something. A few words and smile from her seemed to calm years of anger and angst. The best way to describe it was a crush but crushes were for children and this wasn't childish at all.

"I really am fine, darlin'," Leonard smiled before an officer told them that Pike wanted to see them in one of the conference rooms. They joined Pike, Uhura and Stiles.

"This is our bomber, Simon Lynch. We're working on a current address for him," Pike said. "We tracked his credits to the delivery of some electronic equipment."

"This is what we got from his dating profile," Uhura told them. The profile came up on the screen.

"'Shy and Looking'? Yeah, shy, looking, and deadly," Stiles shook head. Leonard hated to agree with him.

"That's classic," Jem chuckled.

"Her personality's a little off-kilter today," Leonard told their CO.

"A little?" Stiles asked.

"Well, you should've given her charge priority," Uhura pointed out.

"Oh, please," Stiles rolled his eyes.

"You didn't?" Pike asked Stiles. The detective looked at their CO with wide eyes, he knew he screwed up. "Dammit, Stiles. Her emotive functions are the first thing to take a hit when she's trying to conserve power. Keep an eye her, McCoy. I've seen Jemma at ten percent, it would've been hilarious if we weren't being shot at."

"Can we get back to the case, people?" Jemma asked.

"We can," Chris smiled. "Jeannie Hartman fled the date before it was over, went onto the forums telling women to stay away. Ramon Medina turned Lynch down for a loan citing him as 'unstable and unqualified.' He's getting revenge on that people that rejected him in some way."

"It's about control and humiliation," Uhura sighed.

"It gets worse: Lynch was accepted to the police academy," their CO told them. "He trained on the bomb squad, he was kicked out due to psych issues by Sergeant James Morton. We've got a protection detail on him, and we're flagging anyone who might have had a conflict with Lynch. His address looks current. So, Stiles, assemble a tactical team. McCoy, a moment." Everyone left the two men alone in the room. "Are you gonna be able to keep her in check in the field with these mood swings?"

"She's a little edgy, but nothing I can't handle. It's honestly no worse than me. Now I know how she feels. I got her. She'll be okay," Leonard said.

"If you think it's okay, I trust your judgement."

* * *

Where the hell was he? The last thing he remembered, he was at Lynch's place with Jem and Stiles. CSI radioed that they had something for him, he walked over to the command vehicle, then he was out. Now he was sitting on a bench, in a jacket that wasn't his, with something around his neck.

"What the hell?" he muttered. There was a bomb on his neck and his leg was cuffed to the bench. His phone started to ring, he took a breath then answered it. "Lynch, I presume."

"Detective McCoy, you ready to play?" the voice asked and Jeannie was right, it was creepy.

"Look, if you want to kill me, Lynch, go ahead. But the people in this square have done nothing to you," Leonard told the maniac. It wasn't gonna help, but it couldn't hurt.

"It's true, but you did," Simon told him. "If there's collateral damage, so be it. Let's go over the rules. One, if you alert anyone to the fact that you have enough explosives under your coat to level a building, I'll detonate the charge. Two, if the cops or the bomb squad come close to you, I'll detonate the charge. This time, that pretty partner of yours can't help, you're on your own. Three, if the police try to evacuate the area, I'll detonate the charge."

"At least let us evacuate the park," Leonard tried.

"Oh, my viewers wouldn't like that. They want a good show and you're a big star. You're gonna help me get my viewers back," Simon said.

"Well, pal, it doesn't seem like you're giving me much of a chance," Leonard huffed.

"I'm giving you a chance. Have a look under the bench," the psycho told him. Leonard found a screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters in a case under him. "You like to disarm bombs and save people? Like to be a big hero? Then save yourself, hero. The whole world's your stage."

Leonard used the screen on his phone to take a look at the bomb. He had less than eleven minutes to disarm this thing. He remembered what Jemma said earlier, it's not the red or yellow wire, and don't touch green. The lead wire was in the back, he just had to get to it.

"We're not so different, you and me," Simon said.

"Last time I checked, I wasn't a homicidal maniac," Leonard said as he tried to see inside the bomb.

"You forget, Detective, I have access to trashed data. I went through everything that I could find about you."

"I'm flattered."

"I know about the raid. I know that you didn't just lose your leg. See, those men died because of decisions you made."

"You're right, they did. Some of them were my friends and I have to carry the weight of that day with me forever. That doesn't make us the same. At the end of the day, they were killed by terrorists. You are a terrorist."

"I disagree," Simon said. "People didn't want you back on the force. See, we've both had bad psych evaluations. The difference is that you got a second chance. But not me. I got kicked out of the Police Academy. That black mark has followed me forever. That's why I couldn't open the bar. That's why I couldn't get a loan."

"To get back on the force means I left, I never left, I was on medical leave in a coma. My psych eval was a recommendation, one that was ignored by my captain because, despite my bad attitude and disdain for most synthetics, I'm good at what I do. It's why I'm here now. I save people and it pisses you off," Leonard chuckled. "I feel for you, pal. I mean, where is a psychopath to get a bank loan these days?"

"I said no cops!"

"I didn't call them. You did. You're broadcasting this, they figured out where I was. Don't worry, all but a handful of them couldn't care less if I died. My partner would care, my captain too. A few others but that's it. I wouldn't be surprised if they were taking bets. I mean, the last time I was blown up, I ended up in a coma and woke up with a synthetic leg. Maybe my head'll just need replaced this time."

"If they evacuate, I'm blowing you and them to hell right now," Simon told him. Leonard tried to concentrate on the task at hand but he ended up flinging the screwdriver out of reach. "That was bad luck. What are you going to do now?"

What the hell? Leonard looked around, and that's when he spotted it. A relic laying on the concrete a few feet away from him. He got on the ground and stretched as far as he could reach. His fingers barely touched the small piece of metal but he kept trying.

"Ah, trying to get the token. You think that you can use it to separate the wires. You better hurry. People are getting excited. They want me to blow you up," Simon told him.

"Yeah I'm getting kind of excited myself," Leonard said just as his fingers gripped the token. Lynch was right, he was gonna wedge it into the bomb to hold the wires apart. "These people don't care if you blow me up or if you kill yourself. They just want a show."

"Those are bold words, considering I can obliterate you and everyone around you."

"You could but that wouldn't be fair, now would it? You wanted me to play. Or are you going to rig it so I can't win, like you did with Ramon?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"He had less than a minute but he was ten miles from the address that we found, so he would've blown up before he even got close. You know that."

"You don't understand. My black marks just kept following me around. See, people should've respected me like they do now," Simon told him.

"You gotta earn respect. This ain't it. These people don't give a damn about you, just the show you put on. When you're done, they'll move on to the next person that shows them what they want to see. None of it gives you the right to kill people."

"Tell me you never killed anybody."

"I'm a cop, it's part of the job. Every time I do, it stays with me. I think about the mothers who will never see their child again. The children who won't see their parents again. It doesn't go away when the shift ends."

"You hide behind a uniform. Game over, Detective," Lynch said just as Leonard cut the wire and the clock stopped at two seconds. The next voice he heard shocked the hell out of him.

"Suspect is secure. My power's deple…" it was Jemma.

"Someone get this damn thing off of me so I can help my partner," Leonard yelled.

"I got her, McCoy," Stiles said. He doesn't know what happened, but he could hear the respect in Stiles' tone. "I got her."

* * *

"What are we drinking to?" he asked Chris as the other man poured him a drink of the good stuff he hides in his desk.

"Winning."

"Here's to winning."

"How's your partner?" Chris asked.

"Jemma's charging. Apparently, she climbed the side of the tower to get to Lynch and used the last of her power to stop him. Stiles is impressed that she risked her life like that for me. He even feels bad that he didn't give her charge priority."

"You know, I gotta admit, I'm gonna miss her mood swings. They're kind of hilarious."

"You have no idea. What did the doctors say about Lynch?" Leonard asked.

"Severe electrical burns, but he'll live. Open and shut case, he recorded it and there are over a thousand witnesses. Just… don't put me in a room with them."

"You know, as crazy as that guy was, he was right about one thing: Black marks, they do follow you around. Sometimes, I walk through this precinct and the way people look at me…"

"Don't do that. Don't let him into your head. You've done nothing but a great job since you've been back," Pike smiled.

"Well, I got you to thank for that. You fought for me. And if you hadn't ignored that psych report, I would sulking at home."

"There was a psych report?" Chris asked with a smile. "I got something for you."

* * *

"Why are we here? Your apartment is next door," Jemma said.

"We're fixing your charging problem," he smiled.

"I don't have a problem, I'm fully charged," she chuckled.

"That's not what I meant. Welcome home," Leonard smiled.

"What?" Jemma's eyes widened.

"There's a docking station in the back room. The couch, desk and bed are Scotty and Uhura's doing. The guitar is one of mine, saw you eyeing it the last time you were over, figured I could let you borrow it. If you need something, or want something, there's a credit chip linked to you. It's a stipend from the department, since you're technically city _property_ , they can't pay you wedges, this is a compromise. Because you have to be monitored, Chris, Scotty, Uhura and I are all keyed into the locks. We'll make sure to knock though. Other than that, it's all yours."

"I… how…?"

"You know my mother's family has money," he said. Jemma nodded, she's read his file. "She brought the building for me years ago. There's no rent and the utilities are covered."

There were four apartments in the building when his mother brought the oceanfront property on the southern edge of Mission Bay near Dogpatch. She renovated the medium living spaces into two large apartments. Leonard had the one and the other stayed empty. He thought about renting it but then the ambush happened, he was in a coma and after he woke up it was the last thing he wanted to think about.

When Chris talked to the brass about letting Jemma move, Leonard's offer to let her live with him was the one they thought made the most sense. They still see him as unstable, and she has to be monitored off-duty, so letting her live with him killed two birds with one stone. Jemma got the space she needed and the department got to keep an eye on them both.

"We had all your stuff moved from the locker room and Scotty's. Uhura added some stuff she thought you'd like. Is this okay?"

"Okay? It's perfect. Thank you," Jemma smiled and, for the second time today, she was in his arms. This time, he hugged her back.

"You're welcome, darlin'."


	15. Chapter 15

"What about her?" Jemma asked and made a motion to a girl on the other end of the bar. "She's pretty."

"No. She looks like Jocelyn."

"Come on, laddie. There's gotta be someone in here that's your type," Scotty sighed. There was but he wasn't telling either of his companions that.

"Another one for the lady," the bartenders said, sitting a drink in front of Jemma.

"I don't drink," she chuckled as she slid it to Scotty. "Maybe if they were paying attention, they'd notice."

"They'd also notice that you weren't alone," he muttered. Scotty couldn't hear him but Jemma did.

"Aww, is someone jealous?" Jem asked him. Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.

"Nope. Just stating a fact. You walked in here on Scotty's arm and you haven't talked to anyone but us. It's just…" he stopped when Jemma's face lit up. "What?"

"Dead cop. We gotta go," she told him. "Sorry, Scotty."

"It's alright, lass," the Engineer smiled. "Duty calls."

* * *

"Did I ruin date night?" Stiles chuckled as he looked Jemma up and down, she had dressed up a little to go out with him and Scotty. Leonard had a retort on the tip of his tongue but his partner beat him to the punch.

"Actually, you did. We weren't gonna say anything until the wedding but you caught us," she said. The other detective looked at her before he looked at Leonard, who was trying not to laugh at the look on his face. "I'm Scotty's wingwoman. What we got?"

"It's an unmarked car. Deceased officer's prints are all over it," Stiles said. "We found this."

"Benzupropine," Jemma said, scanning the container in John's hand. "It's made from an algae that grows in the ocean. It was only discovered three years ago. They call it The Bends."

"Just what the department needs, a corrupt cop with a trunk full of drugs," Stiles sighed. Leonard looked closer at the dead man on the ground. It's couldn't be.

Jemma ran facial recognition, "Detective Hikaru…"

"Sulu," he finished for her. "He's from the twenty-fifth division."

"You know him?" she asked. Leonard pulled her away from the body and Stiles.

"Pike knows him too. I went to the academy with Sulu. He was a good cop. No way he's dirty," Leonard told his partner.

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Been a few years," he said. That was only half true. Hikaru was one of the few people that visited him when he was in his coma. Leonard tried to see him after he woke up but the other detective was undercover until a few weeks ago.

"Bones, a lot can change in a matter of years."

"Not this. Not Hikaru."

"He had drugs in his trunk. Do you want to read the initial investigation report?" Jemma asked.

"I don't care what it says, Jem. He's not dirty." There were a lot of things and a lot of people that weren't what Leonard thought they were over the course of the last few years, Hikaru Sato Sulu was not one of those people. There was a reason for all of this.

"He wasn't registered on any undercover operation. Someone pulled a subcutaneous wire from…" she said, pausing at the last part. "Why would a dirty cop have a wire?"

"Exactly."

* * *

"You know who that is?" Stiles asked as a tall man walked with Pike to the captain's office. "That's Barry Giotto. He's the captain of two-five precinct, narcotics division. This is the part where he tells Pike that IA was already investigating Detective Sulu for dealing on the side."

"Save it, Stiles," Leonard groaned.

"If he was such a saint, why'd he have fifteen liters of The Bends in his trunk?" the other detective asked.

"If he's guilty, why he was wearing a wire?" Leonard asked.

"Well, one theory's obvious," Stiles shrugged. "He wanted hard evidence against whoever's trafficking, use as leverage, force them to give him a bigger cut of the profits. I don't know. You tell me. He was your friend."

"Yeah, he was."

"Bones. His sisters are here," Jemma said. Leonard turned in his chair to see the two women, one a nurse and the other a uniformed officer, holding hands.

"Aiko. Yuki," he said as he got to his feet.

"Leo," they both gave him a small smile and spoke in unison. People often thought they were twins but Aiko was twelve or so years older than her sister.

"I'm so sorry about Hikaru," Leonard told them after a quick hug. "Come on. I gotta ask you some questions. Is that okay?"

"It's protocol," Yuki said, refusing to show weakness in front of other cops. Just like her brother. "We'll be fine."

He led them into an interview room. "This is my partner, Jemma."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Jem said. Both sisters thanked her before they looked at him.

"Tell me that's the crap I heard over the wire wasn't true," Yuki said. Of course she knew, cops talk.

"That's what we're trying to clear up. Did Hik tell either of you know anything about what he was doing?" Leonard asked.

"You know him, he never brought that stuff around mom. I had lunch with him last month but I haven't seen him outside family dinners. You're still invited to those, by the way. Mom was so worried about you," Aiko said.

"I'll give her a call when I get a chance, I promise," he smiled.

"You didn't notice anything else?" Jemma asked. Aiko shook her head but Yuki thought about it for a minute.

"He was worried," the younger sister said. "He stopped by my place a couple weeks ago, really off. Stressed out more than usual. I figured it was a case he was working." She sighed. "They're treating him like he's a criminal and not one of our own. He's innocent. You believe that, don't you?"

"I do. We just have to prove it," Leonard told her. "And no, you can't work it, Yuki. I know you want to but you can't."

"I know. It'll just look like I'm covering something up for him. IA is already gonna be a pain in my ass." You could feel the disdain dripping off the young officer.

"You sure there's nothing else?" he asked.

"He, um... took a day off earlier this week, went to the boathouse," Aiko said. "I called him and that's where he was."

"Boathouse?" Jemma asked.

"They inherited it from their dad five or six years ago," Leonard told his partner.

"Four walls, no heat. Hik loved it and we both prefer heat, so he's the only one who uses it. If you want some answers, that's where you should look," Yuki told him.

He looked at her, "You wouldn't mind?"

"No, of course not," Aiko said. "Please, just find the truth. Hikaru was a good cop and a good person and he doesn't deserve this."

* * *

"Wanna talk about it, Bones?" Jem asked.

"Nothing to talk about."

"What are we hoping to find?"

"That wire Sulu was wearing was transmitting to somewhere. I'm thinking that this boathouse is probably where he was running whatever this is from there," he told her.

"You seem entirely convinced that Sulu was somehow unfairly set up by these traffickers," she said.

"He was my friend. Until someone can prove any different, he deserves my allegiance. The same allegiance I would give you, Uhura, Pike… even Stiles, just don't tell him I said that."

"Secret's safe with me," Jemma said with a small smile as she unlocked the door.

"If I had to live in one of these things, I'd kill myself," he sighed. "Bit of a mess."

"Someone was here," she told him. "No fingerprints. No DNA outside the Sulu family. Different sized boots. A pair matching Sulu and his younger sister. The other two belong to men."

"Whoever they were, they were probably looking for the same thing that we are," Leonard said.

"Bones, if the same people that killed Sulu came here, that means they knew details about his life."

"Put a..."

"Protection detail on his mother and sisters. You got it," she smiled.

"Thanks," he chuckled.

"You're welcome, neighbor," Jemma chuckled and picked up a picture. "Is this you?"

"Yep." Leonard smiled as the old photo of him and Hikaru long before Section 31 and comas. "Hikaru was the only person in my class who could outrun me, outshoot me."

"So there were only two people in your class?" Jemma asked with a smirk.

"No. Our dads knew each other, worked the same precinct for a while, so we stuck together."

"It's a good picture," she smiled. That's when Leonard looked around.

"It's the only picture," he said. Hikaru was as high tech as the next guy. This was the only actual picture in the whole place. The others were either digital or holographic. "Scan that."

"There's an audio stick in here," she said after a few seconds.

"Thanks for the hint, buddy."

* * *

_"Now does the finder's fee seem fair?" Sulu asked someone._

_"We're talking six hundred liters of raw product. I'm gonna need to see him cook first," the other voice said._

_Two gunshots._

_"What the hell are you doing?!" Sulu again._

_Two more gunshots._

_"What… Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong!" Sulu's breathing was labored._

_One more gunshot._

"So Sulu got a meeting with The Albino?" Uhura sighed.

"Vice has been trying to build a case against him for the last decade. No one's gotten so much as a photo, let alone a name," Pike said with a nod.

"Sulu found him," Leonard added.

"Found him? He was working with him... brokering a deal to sell him a cook," Stiles said.

"More like that was the only way to get a face-to-face," Leonard offered.

"There have only been a few deaths because The Bends is so difficult to harvest from the ocean. Six hundred liters of raw product sounds like an operation to mass produce," Jemma said.

"That's what The Albino does. If his pattern holds, first he takes out the competition, creates a shortage, drive up the price," Uhura took a breath. "The Bends is notoriously addictive. We could be looking at an epidemic."

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Leonard asked his CO.

"We got a call from County. They have twenty-five cases of The Bends overdoses. Five dead already," Chris sighed.

"So, let's finish what Sulu started. The Albino still needs a cook. I could pose as one, get a CI to vouch for me," he offered.

"Ha. Jemma's a better cook than you and she doesn't even eat. You can't cook ramen. How the hell you gonna cook The Bends?" Pike laughed.

"Hey. Come on, I can cook ramen," Leonard said. The captain raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I can order ramen."

"Leonard, let's talk about what's really driving you here. Sulu was your friend and you can't help but make this personal," Chris said. Leonard opened his mouth to speak but Chris held up a hand. "It's okay. If I were in your shoes… hell, I've been in your shoes. But we got kids dying on the streets here. We gotta hand this to Narco, and I'm sorry, but we gotta put your friend's case on hold."

"Look, this has got nothing to do with my friend. This is about catching The Albino. It's been ten years. This is our best shot. We finally have an angle on him. He's desperate to find a cook."

"If I agreed, where are we gonna find someone with a background in chemistry, that is so good, so believable in his skill, he'll convince even The Albino? We don't have time for this."

"Actually, I got just the guy."

* * *

"You want me to go undercover?" Scotty asked him. Chekov was actually Leonard's first choice but Jemma vetoed it since Chekov was barely old enough to drink and he rambled in Russian when he was nervous, there was no way she was allowing the kid to go undercover. It was actually kind of adorable the way she went all protective over the kid. Scotty was the next best option.

"Yes," Leonard said. "You'll be working on the front lines, a hero to the department. You'll be keeping a highly addictive drug off the streets and saving countless lives. All you gotta do is know how to cook. And it may not even get to that, if you get a face-to-face with The Albino first.

"Just please remember that this is an extremely dangerous job," Jemma told their friend. "We'll have you under full surveillance at all times. You'll never be out of sight and you know how good my sight is."

"Full surveillance?" Scotty asked.

"Yeah, an entire detail watching you, ready to move in if anything goes wrong," Leonard said.

"Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it," the engineer said.

"Fantastic. Stiles spent half his career working Vice. He'll be prepping you," he said to the enthusiastic Scot.

"Nyota's building your cover," Jemma added.

"Would I wear a disguise? Can I wear a disguise?" Scotty asked.

"Maybe you should check with Uhura and Stiles," his partner smiled as they headed towards the door.

"Hey. Where are you guys going?"

"To find someone to arrange the meet," Leonard told him.

Jemma looked at him as they walked to the car. "Did I do something?"

"What?"

"I get that this case is close to home for you but that's no reason to revert back to being grumpy," she said.

"It's not you. It's… I've been having some dreams that I can't quite…"

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No," he sighed as he started the car. "Yes. No."

"Which is it?"

"I want to talk about it. And I should talk about them. I just can't talk to you about them."

"Oh."

"It's nothing you did. It's just…"

"I'm in them. The dreams," Jemma said. Damn perceptive partners.

"Yes. Some of them end badly. Others… aren't exactly appropriate."

"I'm gonna assume I die in the bad dreams. That suggests that some aspect or quality I have is dying within yourself. Let's face it, I'm awesome, so that could be anything. Or you're worried about me," she chuckled. "Inappropriate dreams indicate a closeness we share that's depicted as sexual. Though, such dreams also indicate a level of attraction between us that you're too afraid to act on."

"This is why I shouldn't have said anything."

"That actually explains why we couldn't find you a girl last night."

"Drop it."

"Why?" she asked. "I think it's cute that you have a crush on me."

"Jemma."

"Leonard."

* * *

"Oh, God, I thought you were dead," Cyrano Jones, a low-level dealer for The Albino, said to him.

"Well, in the afterlife, you're still a dealer," Leonard chuckled.

"I'm not..." Cyrano started.

"He's holding. Three point six milliliters of The Bends," Jemma said.

"Three point six milliliters of The Bends. That's eighteen to twenty-four months, pal," Leonard told Jones. "Unless, of course you wanna cut a deal."

"Last time I did you a favor, I almost got my throat slit," Cyrano said.

"Lucky for you, he couldn't find it," Leonard chuckled.

"You got fat jokes? Don't get me started on that piece of silicon and carbon fiber you call a leg," the dealer said with a laugh. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to broker a meeting between The Albino and a new cook," the detective told the other man.

"Are you insane?" Cyrano asked.

"All the time. It's usually funny," Jemma said. Leonard looked at her. "What? You are."

"What's it gonna be, Cy?" Leonard asked.

"It's gonna cost you something big," the dealer told them.

"Try me. I'm in a generous mood today."

"My girl got pulled over a couple months back. The cops found a few guns. She's got priors, which means major time," Cyrano said.

"What's her name?" Leonard asked.

"Nona Davison. She got booked downtown."

"Jem."

She went disco face for a second, "Dismissed the charges, officer's discretion."

"Set the meeting."


	16. Chapter 16

"Okay. I called in every favor I have. My ass is on the line. You understand what that means, right?" Cyrano asked. "This don't work, it ain't 'we don't do no more business together' bad. It's they 'kill my girlfriend and kid' bad."

"We got it," Leonard nodded. "Where's the meet?"

"The Albino wants to meet your cook at Pier Four in the Defense District, in one of those old abandoned buildings."

"That's makes sense," Jemma said from the spot where she was leaning against his desk. "Isolated and discreet."

"Of course, this whole thing only works if The Albino turns up in person," Pike added.

"He'll be there. He's got a lot of people waiting for this product. Hope your guy knows what he's walking into," Cyrano said.

"He knows," his partner said. "We should probably go get set."

"Yea. Thanks, Cy," Leonard said as he pulled on his jacket.

"Like I had much choice," the other man smiled. "Until next time?"

"Until next time."

* * *

"Alright, Scotty, how you feeling?" Leonard asked.

"Okay, I guess," the engineer told them.

"Good to hear. What's the one thing you gotta remember?" Jemma asked.

"One? Don't mess up the drugs. Don't get killed. Get The Albino to say that he distributes narcotics. Shouldn't be too much of a problem," Scotty chuckled.

"Just keep him talking. The more we can learn about his operation, the better a case we can build against him, okay? Now do we need to go over this again?" Leonard asked.

"No, I think I got it," the slightly older man sighed before grabbing a small green drink off the table. "Bottoms up."

"You sure that's gonna work?" he couldn't help but ask his friend.

"The department's still beta testing, but theoretically, it should make my whole body into an undetectable GPS locator and tracking beacon for same-platform technology," Scotty said right before the computer beeped. A flashing red dot popped up on the map. "And there I am."

"All right. We're tracking Scotty here, as well," Pike said over comms. "It's all yours, McCoy."

"Scotty, you okay?" Jemma asked.

"Yeah, lass. Bloody pumped. Let's, uh… rock and roll," Scotty smiled.

"You got this, buddy," Leonard smiled as he friend left the building to go to the meet. "He better not die."

"Cams are set," Stiles said, looking at the tablet in his hands.

"I have visual. He's in," Uhura added.

_"Stop. Put your hands out," one of the men said before checking Scotty for weapons and wires._

"That's a bot," Jemma told them. "DX model. Older than me."

_"I'm Cruz," another man said._

_"I'm Scotty," their friend said._

"Did he just tell 'em his real name?" Leonard asked.

_"Thought your name was Callum Waits," Cruz said._

_"It is. Scotty's a nickname thanks to the bloody accent," Scotty covered. Cruz didn't like that and put a gun in Scotty's face._

**"** We gotta go in," Leonard sighed. Scotty's gonna get himself killed.

"Wait, wait," Jemma stopped him. "Let me go in alone. We can still salvage this mission." Her face lit up.

"What are you doing?" Uhura asked.

"They can't know I'm a cop, so I'm shutting down all my comm relays so they won't detect any outgoing transmissions," his partner said.

"Are you kidding? We'll have no way to communicate with you," Stiles told her.

"Do it. You gotta do it," Leonard sighed. "If anything goes down, you're Scotty's only hope."

Jemma looked around the room, grabbed something off the table where Scotty's stuff was and jogged out the door.

_"Is this what you wanted me for? To stand around twiddling our bloody thumbs?" Scotty asked. A minute later, there were three knocks on the door._

_"Hey, I'm looking for Scotty," they heard Jemma said as the bot pulled her in and held her against the door. "Hey. Hey. Hey! Get the hell off of me. Scotty, I have your glasses. Tell them to call off this busted refrigerator before I send him back to the scrap pile."_

_"You were supposed to come alone," Cruz said to the engineer._

_"She's a JTK. Police issue," the DX said._

_"Was. She_ was _police issue. The whole line got scrapped four years and a half years ago. I found her on the black market and completely refurbished her. Come on. We all got bots here, mine's just prettier than yours. Looks better in a bikini too," Scotty said with a wink._

"Did he just…?" Stiles asked.

"Yep," Leonard smiled.

_"Let her go," Cruz ordered. Jemma pushed the other bot away and fixed her jacket. "Let's go." Cruz led Scotty to the lab. Jemma handed him his glasses and gave him a kiss on the cheek before falling into step behind him._

"That's my girl," Leonard whispered to himself. He let out the breath he was holding before talking to Pike. "Jem's got his six, we're good."

_"You've got two minutes," Cruz said. "Let's see what you can do."_

_"Well, if I get this job, there's gonna be some changes around here," Scotty said before he mixed up a batch of The Bends in ninety-four seconds. "Done. Taste the bloody perfection."_

_The DX drank it, "It's ninety-six percent pure."_

_"I told you, I'm a bloody chef," Scotty smiled._

_"You are indeed quite a chef, Callum," another voice said as he joined the group_.

"Wait a minute. Where'd he come from?" Leonard asked.

"Don't move. Don't move," Uhura muttered as she ran facial recognition. "Got him. Gavin Maxwell. Got a record as long as my arm... distribution charges that nobody could make stick."

"He's gotta be The Albino. Second they make the deal, we move in," he said.

"What is that?" Uhura asked. Maxwell had walked Scotty away from the group and handed him a vial of white liquid.

_"So, how much weight are we talking about? What's…?" Scotty started to ask. Maxwell made a motion for him to drink it. "Oh… Okay."_

"Wait. What just happened?" Stiles looked at the screen. "We just lost the GPS on Scott."

"All teams are a go. Move, move, move! Let's go!" Leonard ordered. He ran as fast as he could to the warehouse and he was the first of his team in the door."Police!"

Cruz pointed his gun at Leonard and the detective shot him in the leg. Another man came around the corner but Jem snapped his neck before he could fire on the officers with what looked like a sub-machine gun. It was pretty hot. Wait. Where the hell did that come from?

"We searched everywhere. Scotty's not here," Stiles said as soon as the place was cleared.

"That's impossible. We had eyes on every exit," Leonard said.

Jemma picked up the glasses she handed Scotty earlier, "He's gone."

* * *

"Aren't you gonna do something?" Cruz asked Jemma. "You have protocols and stuff."

"Yea… but unlike those VXs, I have free will, so… I can ignore protocol when stuff happens to my friends. And since I don't get queasy, my partner putting his finger in your bullet wound doesn't bother me, I'm not even recording this. Honestly, you should just tell us what we want to know. His mother's a doctor and I have access to unlimited anatomy information. This could get a lot worse in no time flat," she shrugged. "Where did The Albino take Scotty?"

"I'm not…" Cruz started but Leonard put more pressure in on the wound. "Alright, okay, stop! Maxwell's not The Albino. Nobody meets The Albino."

"His vitals suggest he's telling the truth, Bones. He's told us all he knows." Leonard pulled his hand out of the criminal and pulled off his gloves.

"But if Maxwell isn't The Albino, then who is?" he asked his partner.

"Hey, guys…" Uhura called over to them, holding up the vial that Scotty drank.

"It's the counter-agent to the GPS solvent Scotty took… How'd they get this? That tech is a few week old," Jemma said after she stuck her finger in the vial to run a test on it.

"They must have somebody on the inside," Leonard sighed.

"McCoy," Pike said over comms, "that's a huge accusation to have floating around the precinct."

"They gave Scotty the GPS counter-agent. How else can you explain that, unless someone from PD gave it to them?" Uhura pointed out.

"We need to look at Maxwell's priors," Leonard said.

"I've got his file up. Maxwell beat a major distribution charge," Chris said.

"It says Maxwell's case was thrown out due to lack of evidence," Jemma added. "Captain Giotto sighed for his release."

"Giotto. He's gotta be… Oh, shit," Pike said.

* * *

"Captain Pike," Giotto said over the phone in Pike's office. He was letting the team listen over comms while an officer ran a trace.

"Barry. You said you wanted to be kept in the loop regarding Detective Sulu. Out of respect, I wanted to update you. We talked to his sisters and found out that he had a boathouse out over by one of the piers. I sent a couple of my people to check it out," Chris said.

"Did you find anything?" Giotto asked.

"Nope. Someone got there before us. Probably whoever Sulu was working with. So, back to square one," Pike sighed.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the other Captain said.

"Me, too. I'll let you know if anything new pops up," Chris assured the other man.

"I appreciate the update, Chris. Keep me posted."

"You got it," Chris disconnected the call.

"Got him. He's in Hunters Point in a warehouse on Lockwood," some officer told Chris.

"We copy," Leonard said before speeding up.

"We're gonna get to Scotty in time," Jemma said.

"This is my fault," he muttered.

"No, it's not. You do know that if bad stuff didn't happen you'd be out of a job."

Leonard smiled, "You're annoying."

"Only because I'm right."

* * *

"I'll save Scotty from the DX. Go," Jemma said before running after the android that was shooting at their friend.

Leonard nodded and ran off after Giotto. The captain fired a few shots at him but kept running though the shipyard. Leonard shot back until he ran out of bullets. Giotto tried to shoot at him again but Leonard grabbed the first thing he could and threw it, hitting the gun out of the other man's hand. It turned into a scuffle for the captain's weapon.

"You stupid cop." Giotto growled. Leonard almost had it. "I'll bury you like your idiot friend Sulu."

"He was a good cop. A good man."

"He was stupid. He should've let it go. I'm a captain, I can kill you right now and nobody'll question it. You're unstable at best." Giotto punched him in the ribs again but Leonard wrapped his hand around the gun. "This will be a…" Leonard pulled the trigger twice, hitting Giotto center mass.

"Bones?" Jemma asked over comms.

"I'm okay. Giotto… He…"

"Killed Sulu. Your comms are live," she said, "we all heard him."

* * *

"Well, you'll probably have a scar but no long-term damage," Stiles told Scotty as the whole group goofed off in the bullpen.

"A scar? How big of a scar?" the engineer asked.

"Not too big," Pike chuckled. "Don't worry about it. Chicks dig scars."

"We do, it's a weakness," Uhura smiled.

"That so?" Scotty asked with a smile at the female detective.

"It's a sign of bravery and masculinity. Means you're a survivor," Jemma was looking at Scotty but Leonard had a feeling that she was talking to him too. He thought of his leg as a reminder of what happened when it really should be a reminder that he survived.

"You did a great job, Scotty," Leonard smiled.

"I'll be ready for my next assignment in a couple of weeks," the engineer told them.

"Uh, yea, that's up to the captain," Leonard told his friend. Chris sent him a death glare.

"We'll see," Pike chuckled. "Good job, people."

"I think I need a drink," Stiles sighed.

"I'm down with that," Uhura chuckled.

Chris smiled, "I'll even buy."

"I'm definitely in," Scotty said.

"I wouldn't mind tagging along," Jemma told them. "Bones?"

"Yea, I could use a drink," he said to his partner just as Yuki Sulu walked into the bullpen. "Yuki."

"Thank you, Leo," Hikaru's younger sister gave him a tight hug before looking at the whole group. "Thank you all for proving that my brother was the man and the cop I always knew he was."

"You are very welcome, Officer Sulu," Pike said. Yuki thanked them again before she left the precinct.

"You okay?" Jemma asked him.

"Yea. Just… wished I could've helped Hikaru before Giotto killed him," Leonard sighed. The whole group gave him a nod or sad smile.

"You're a good person, Bones," Jemma gave his shoulder squeeze.

"Getting back there," he sighed. "So, Quark's?"

"Ah, a genuine cop bar. Um, any chance we can get into a bar fight?" Scotty asked.

"No," the whole team told the Scot as they all pulled on jackets and shut off computers.

"That's no fun."


	17. Chapter 17

"Bones. Bones, wake up," Jemma said, her hands on his face.

"Jem? What are you doing over here?" he muttered.

"You were screaming for Phil and my hearing is that good. Nightmare?"

"Yea. The ambush."

"Wanna talk about it?" she asked.

"Not really. There wasn't anything new… except…"

"Except what?"

"I missed something," Leonard jumped out of bed and practically ran over to his desk. He hit the control to illuminate his post-its and pulled up the handful of video messages he saved from Jocelyn.

"You kept her messages for over two years? You know, some might call that obsessive."

"In all fairness, I was in a coma for a year and a half," he chuckled. "When I found out she was part of Section Thirty-one, I kept them hoping to find a lead but I never gave them to you and I think I should've."

"You want me to find clues in the messages," Jemma said. She didn't phrase it as a question, she knew him too well.

"Jocelyn was supposed to be out of town during the raid. She called me from New York, only, it couldn't have been New York because she was part of the ambush. So, that message has to be fake, which means…"

"The others are probably fake too and every time she was out of town, she probably wasn't. Go back to bed, I'll see what I can find."

"I'm good."

"You're tired," she told him.

"I'm not…" he yawned, "tired."

"You were saying."

"Are you gonna be okay? I thought you were charging."

"I'm at ninety-eight percent," Jemma said. "Seriously, put your leg on the charger and go back to bed. I'll go back to my place and look this over."

"Stay. Please," he said quietly, almost afraid to go back to sleep without her there.

"Okay, I'll work from here and wake you up if I find something," she told him, holding out her hand. He disconnected the synthetic limb and handed to his partner.

"Thanks for this, Jem."

"Anytime."

* * *

Leonard let out a grunt when he noticed a weight on his chest. He reached up with his hand to nudge whatever it was off and was met with hair, and an ear, and a neck. Leonard blinked open his eyes and found Jemma, her head on his shoulder and her eyes closed, blue lights going on the side of her face. He knew she wasn't asleep in his sense of the word but she seemed to be focused on something.

"Jem."

"You're awake," she said as her eyes opened and the disco face stopped.

"You're in my bed."

"You had another nightmare. Soon as I touched you, you calmed down, so I stayed. I never would've pegged you for a cuddler."

"Hey, I happen to be a good cuddler."

"So I've noticed. I promise I won't tell anyone. Was your nightmare about the ambush and Jocelyn again?" she asked. He nodded. "Anything new?"

"Nope," Leonard sighed.

"You okay?"

"Well, I woke up with a beautiful woman in my arms, so… yea," he chuckled, earning a smile from his partner. "What time is it?"

"Almost seven." Jemma pushed herself up and Leonard instantly missed her warmth but it was probably a good thing that they weren't pressed against each other anymore. "We should both get ready for work. I'll tell you what I found after we get some coffee in your system."

"You really do know me too well."

* * *

"So, I dropped the backgrounds and filters in the messages from Jocelyn. The locations she sent them from are all digital. If I had to guess, she's standing in front of a three dimensional projector," Jemma told him and Pike in the captain's office.

"So there's no way to trace the messages," Leonard said.

"Never said that," she smiled. "Most, are standard calls and untraceable. The message when she was supposed to be in Rome, however, was sent over the net. I traced it back through a bunch of proxy servers to an IP address registered to a shell company who, until recently, had an office in the Financial District. The place is probably empty but it couldn't hurt to look."

"Chris, I…" Leonard started but their CO held up a hand.

"Go, let me know if you find anything," Pike told them.

"Will do," the detective nodded.

"Good job, Jemma," Chris said.

"Thank you, sir, but it was his idea. I'm just better at tech then him," Jemma chuckled.

"Well, then good job, both of you. Get out of here."

* * *

"Are we gonna talk about what happened this morning?" she asked as he drove.

"What do you mean?" he glanced at her.

"You're adorable when you're playing coy."

"Uh… sorry, I guess?"

"For what? I never said anything was wrong, I just want to know if you want to talk about your natural biological reaction to my presence."

"You make it sound so… wrong that way," Leonard chuckled.

"I didn't mean… What I'm trying… I…" Jemma started and stopped a few times and that beautiful artificial blush crept up her neck. "Never mind."

"It's been a while since I woke up with someone in my arms," he told her as he parked the car. "After everything with Jocelyn I resigned myself to the fact that I would never let anyone get close enough to hurt me again. It's part of the reason I was the asshole you met. It's just easier to be a jerk, most people don't get close to jerk. Except you… but you're special."

"And awesome."

"And awesome and beautiful and…" Leonard stopped himself from saying he loved her but he had this feeling that she already knew. She knows everything else he's thinking. "Any idea what we're in for in this place?"

"Nope," she chuckled as they stepped into the elevator.

"Should be fun."

* * *

_"Well, Leo, that took you long enough. I must admit, I was surprised to find out that you were still alive after everything we did to you. Even more surprised that you were up and about and back to work. Don't worry, we'll rectify both of those problems soon enough. Be seeing ya, babe," Jocelyn said.  
_

"That has to be recent, you've only been back to work for a couple months and we didn't broadcast your return," Chris sighed at he turned off the video that they found in the empty office.

"Section Thirty-One did," Jemma said. "They were his first case back. I'm guessing Ayel or Nero passed the message along to their people before we nabbed them."

"By the sounds of it, they're gonna come after McCoy again. So, what do we do?" Stiles asked.

"Nothing. I'm not gonna let them rip apart my life again. I worked too hard," Leonard said. "I'm gonna do my job and keep my eyes open."

"Leonard…" Uhura said but he shook his head.

"They want to come after me, let 'em. They'll have to get through my very protective partner," he chuckled.

"I'd like to see them try," Jem smiled.

"Oh, God. You're corrupting Jemma," Pike chuckled.

"No, he's not. I'd die for all of you and you know it," Jemma said.

"I do. Just… be careful, all of you," Chris looked at each of them. "Dismissed." The whole group left the small conference room.

"You okay?" his partner asked.

"Yea, why wouldn't I be?" he gave her a look.

"Uh… your terrorist ex-girlfriend is gunning for you."

"She doesn't get to me anymore," Leonard shrugged. He's not sure when it happened but the idea of Jocelyn doesn't even bother him. Her voice doesn't do anything and he can think about her without flashing back to some random moment they had together. "I'm okay, really. If I'm not, you'll be the first to know." Jemma gave him a nod and a smile. "Wanna bring me up to speed on this case?"

* * *

" _She wants to dance like Uma Thurman, bury me 'til I confess. She wants to dance like Uma Thurman, and I can't get you out of my head_ …"

"Really, Jem? That song was annoying when I was a kid, it's worse now," he chuckled.

Jemma rolled her eyes, " _I can move mountains, I can work a miracle, work a miracle. I'll keep you like an oath. 'May nothing but death do us part..._ ' Stop being a grump, it's catchy."

"Of course it's catchy, that was the point."

"I do have a question," she said. Leonard just gave her a nod. "Why would someone want to dance like Uma Thurman? She was an actress, right?"

"It's about her character in Pulp Fiction, Mia. She basically orders Vincent Vega, John Travolta's character, to dance with her. Something about her husband being his boss and telling him to take Mia out to do whatever she wanted. She asserts her dominance the whole time."

"We might have to watch it, it's in your collection."

"You want to watch a movie with me?"

"Yea. Why not? I mean, unless you don't want to and that's cool. It was just an idea. I like seeing your reactions to stuff… that came out wrong."

"You're rambling," he chuckled. "And blushing."

"I do that."

"The artificial blush response... I noticed."

"You notice when I blush?" she asked.

"Sometimes," Leonard smiled. "It looks good on you. And yes, we can watch Pulp Fiction. Just… sing something else."

" _See the stone set in your eyes, see the thorn twist in your side. I'll wait for you. Sleight of hand and twist of fate, on a bed of nails she makes me wait. And I wait without you. With or without you. With or without you_ ," she sang from the passenger seat. U2 was more his speed. " _Through the storm we reach the gave it all but I want more. And I'm waiting for you_."

" _With or without you. With or without you. I can't live, with or without you_ ," Leonard decided to sing along. Jemma smiled and they kept going. " _And you give yourself away. And you give yourself away. And you give, and you give, and you give yourself away_."

He smiled, " _My hands are tied, my body bruised. She's got me with…_ "

" _Nothing to win and nothing left to lose_ ," Jemma belted out. He reminded himself to ask who thought to give her a singing voice. It's nice.

" _And you give yourself away_."

" _And you give yourself away_."

" _And you give, and you give, and you give yourself away_."

" _With or without you. With or without you_ ," they looked at each other, " _I can't live, with or without you_ …"

* * *

"Wait… that's really how Reservoir Dogs ends?" Jemma asked. "That's messed up."

"I told you," he chuckled. Watching one Quentin Tarantino movie turned into watching three.

"But… after everything he did for Orange… White dies. That's so… wrong."

"He did kill Orange. You rooting for a criminal now?"

"That one, yes. All the stuff they went through and he stayed loyal to his friend only for that friend to betray him like that," she said. "I can't even be mad about it. I'd kill someone for you, just like you'd kill someone for me. But I'd be heartbroken if it turned out that you were lying to me the whole time."

"Well, that's true," Leonard smiled. "Even though we knew Orange was a cop, it was still hard to watch White when he found out. That kind of betrayal… cuts deep. I would know."

"You know it's not your fault, right?" Jemma said. "If it wasn't you, it would've been someone else on your team."

"Tell that to IA."

"Fuck IA. You're a good cop and a good man. She used that against you, Bones, that's not your fault," she told him. "Besides, she made a very big mistake, she left you alive. If I know anything, it's that you will make her and all her Section Thirty-one buddies pay for what they did to your squad."

"I can't believe _you_ just dropped an f-bomb."

"Well, I do spend all my time with you," Jem chuckled. "I'm serious. I know you can take them down… we will take them down. Besides, she'll be lucky if I don't get my hands on her before you do. She hurt my partner and I can't have that."

"You're the best person I know. Did you know that?"

"I would've said Chris… but that's just me," she smiled.

"I'm serious. You're the best person I know."

"Some would argue that I'm not a person at all."

"Tell them to say that to my face and see what happens," he chuckled.

"I think I have some idea," Jemma chuckled. "It's late. I should probably…"

"Yea. I gotta sleep and you gotta charge."

"Thanks for letting me raid your movies, Bones." She smiled before pressing a soft kiss against his lips. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, darlin'." He watched as she left his apartment. Leonard doesn't know how long it took his brain to catch up. "She kissed me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's singing Uma Thurman by Fall Out Boy and With or Without You by U2


	18. Chapter 18

"Well, there's not much to eat in here."

"If I knew you were coming, I would've stopped by the store," Leonard smiled as he walked into his kitchen. "Hi, mama."

"There's my boy. You look so much better than the last time I saw you. You're sleeping and eating like you're supposed to?" Doctor Eleanor McCoy asked.

"Yes, ma'am," he chuckled. It was enough that she mothers the hell outta him, but she's a doctor too, so it was a thousand times worse. "I already know what you're gonna say next. Yes, I'm talking to someone."

"Well, you've always had a temper, I wouldn't want you to get in any trouble," she smiled. "Work?"

"Work's good. What are you doing here, mama?"

"I'm giving a series of lectures at UCSF. They don't start for a few days but I figured that I'd come see you first."

"I have to work today. If you called, I would've taken the day off."

"Nonsense. I didn't come to fuss up your life, sugar, I just wanted to see you. Maybe have supper. You can tell me about the ladies in your life."

"There aren't…" he stopped himself. He doesn't really know what to call whatever was going on between him and Jemma. "I…"

"Bones?" his partner called. The smug look on his mother's face was gonna haunt him forever. "You know Pike hates it if we're late. Besides… oh. Hello, Doctor McCoy."

"Leonard, aren't you gonna introduce me to your friend?" his mom asked.

"Mama, this is Jemma. Jem, this is my mother," he said. Leonard didn't say anything about the fact that Jemma wasn't exactly human, he wanted to see how long it would take for his mother to figure out.

"Aren't you as pretty as a summer's day," his mother said.

"Thank you, ma'am. I didn't mean to interrupt but we're gonna be late for roll call if he doesn't get a move on," Jemma said.

"You're a police officer too?" Eleanor asked as Leonard went back to his room to finish getting dressed.

"Yes, ma'am," he heard his partner say.

"How's he doing?" His mama couldn't resist.

"He's been great. Cranky at times but we've all been there. Doesn't eat nearly as well as he should but he's getting better… Well, more like he eats the fruits and veggies I stick in there, so I call that win," Jemma chuckled.

"Do you live nearby?" his mom asked.

"Yes, ma'am. The apartment next door. I wasn't in the best living situation, bad roommates, and he offered to help me out. He's really sweet when he thinks nobody's paying attention."

"You're always paying attention, Jem," he smiled before giving his mother a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you later, mama."

"Yes, you will. I might stop by the precinct, say hello to Christopher. It was lovely meeting you, Jemma."

"And you, Doctor McCoy," Jem smiled.

"Oh, just call me Ellie, sweetie."

"Yes, ma'am," his partner nodded before he had to pull her out of the apartment. They got into the car and she smiled. "How is that woman your mother? She's friendly and you are not."

"Hey, I'm friendly," he exclaimed with mock hurt.

"To like five people."

"That's still friendly."

"You didn't tell her that I'm an android," she said but it was more like a question.

"Are you? I hadn't noticed."

* * *

"Jem, is that…?" he was looking over her shoulder and she turned to see what he was talking about.

"That's a GSK," she whispered.

"Must be weird seeing one of your… brothers."

"It's weird seeing one of us do something like this. We were designed to be cops not maintenance men," Jemma sighed.

"Everyone can't be as awesome as you, partner. Prelim?"

"Victim I.D.s as Thomas Li. Cause of death, cardiac arrest. He was diagnosed three years ago with terminal congestive heart failure. He should've died then," she told him as they stepped into the operating room.

"He had a bio-mech heart. It's a pricey organ. Not as dependable as a perfect stem cell regrow but top of the line for a bio-mechanical organ," one of the doctors said.

"So why are we here?" Leonard asked. Dead guy in a hospital was actually pretty normal.

"There's no record of any transplant for him. He's not on any official recipient list. And there's something else," the man said before handing them a tablet.

"They killed me," Thomas said, waving a gun around, "They killed me... I don't want to hurt anyone."

"If you just put the gun down..." the surgeon said before Thomas switched languages.

"It's Cantonese," Jemma said. "'You're not listening. It's almost nine-eighteen. They killed me.' Nine-eighteen is the time of death."

Leonard looked at his partner, "How could he have known that?"

* * *

"May I help you?" the receptionist at Crusher Medical said.

"We're here to speak with Alyssa Ogawa," Leonard said.

"Of course," the woman smiled at him before making a call to Miss Ogawa's office.

Thanks to his mama and Scotty, they learned that Thomas Li had a Crusher Alpha, a top-of-the-line bio-mechanical heart. Scotty found some kind of circuit modifications on it and he was running diagnostics while Leonard and Jemma went to talk to the people at Crusher.

"So…?" Jemma whispered.

"So," he smiled. "You kissed me."

"I did. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything. I just… maybe I read you wrong or…"

"Jem, stop. I'm not gonna lie, it caught me by surprise but it didn't make me uncomfortable. It was nice."

"I'll have to remember that for next time," she smiled.

"So there is gonna be a next time," Leonard looked at her. Jemma gave him a wink and a smile.

"Detectives," the receptionist got their attention. "Miss Ogawa will see you now."

The pair was led into a nice office where a beautiful Asian woman was sitting behind a desk. She rose quickly to shake their hands. "Detectives, what can I do for you?"

"Somehow this heart found its way into a man named Thomas Li," Leonard said, showing her a picture on his phone as they all sat down. "Do you have any idea how that may have happened?"

"I don't, but it's definitely one of our hearts," she said.

"You are aware that it's illegal to resell bio-mech organs," he told her.

"We are very aware of that. Crusher complies with all regulations," Miss Ogawa told him.

"What about this piece? We found it in the heart," Leonard made the picture bigger to show her what Scotty found.

"That doesn't belong. It's aftermarket. Voids the warranty," the executive told him as she typed something into her computer.

"Well, lucky for you, Mister Li's dead," Jemma muttered.

"The heart is registered to a Sylvia Golinski," Miss Ogawa told them. "It says here that she passed away a little over two years ago."

"Standard procedure when someone dies is to destroy the bio-mechanical organ," his partner said. "How is that verified?"

"Well, the funeral home sends us a… a document," Miss Ogawa told them.

Leonard chuckled, "Oh. That's failsafe. We're gonna need that paperwork."

* * *

"Henry Mills?" Leonard asked the man in front of him. "I'm Detective McCoy. We're investigating the cremation of a woman here two years ago, Misses Sylvia Golinski."

"You're cops," Henry chuckled. "I know you know how many people die every day."

"We also know statute ninety-two dash six-oh-one dash eleven-B requires you to keep permanent records," Jemma said before handing Mills the electronic paper. "This is a letter to Crusher Medical, confirming the destruction of Misses Golinski's bio-mech heart. And there," she pointed, "is your signature."

"We have to take out any inorganic parts and destroy them. Otherwise, they mess up the machine," Mills told them.

"But you didn't destroy Misses Golinski's heart, Henry. We found it in someone else's body. You wanna tell us how it got there?" Leonard asked.

"I sold it," Henry shrugged.

"How many?" Jemma asked.

"A lot. Over the years, a hundred maybe?" Mills said. "It's only illegal so the people who manufacture them can make more money."

"Do you refurbish the hearts?" Leonard asked.

"When I find one, I make a call," Henry sighed. "Guy named Oscar answers, I don't know his last name. Showed up here, offered to buy any bio-mech hearts I came across. Said he knew people who needed them. That because of me, they'd be staying alive longer. And these perfectly good hearts are going in the trash anyway. Just because something is used doesn't mean it's got no value. He comes by, makes the pick-up, and pays me."

Jemma and Leonard looked at each other just as his phone rang. He stepped away from Mills and his partner. "McCoy."

"I checked into Li's financials. On the fifteenth of every month, he made a transfer to an unmarked account. Always for five grand," Uhura said on the other end of the call.

"How long?" he asked.

"It's been going on for twenty-five months like clockwork," Uhura told him.

"Alright. Keep looking," Leonard sighed.

"Okay. Hey, did your mom and Scotty reach you?" she asked.

"Not yet, why?"

"Call them," Uhura told him before she hung up. He was too curious not to see what they found.

"We figured out what the modifications were for," Scotty said as soon as the call connected.

"Don't keep me waiting, Scotty," Leonard chuckled.

"It's a custom version of a terahertz frequency transponder and limiter. What it does, what all of these little mods working together do, they limit how long the heart will function," the engineer told him.

"It's effectively a timer," his mother added. "It would count down precisely thirty days. Unless someone resets it remotely. At the end of the thirty days, it would stop, the mods shut down the organ."

"That's what they're designed to do. Whoever gave Mister Li this heart did not reset it for him. That's what he meant at the emergency room, when he said, 'They killed me.' And he was right," Scotty sighed.

"There could be more than a hundred of these things out there," Leonard told his friend and his mother. "It's an extortion racket."

"Aye, lad, they're all on borrowed time," Scotty said before he hung up.

"Henry," Leonard said, "You're gonna call Oscar, tell him it's time for a pickup."

"Okay, I can do that," Mills told him.

"We're gonna bait him?" Jemma asked.

He nodded, "Yep."

* * *

"Where the hell is this guy, McCoy?" Stiles asked over comms.

"Henry, you better not be wasting our time," Leonard said.

"Yeah, well, I said he'd show. I never said he was punctual. He will be here. Just be patient," Mills told him. "So, what's the deal with your friend? She's hot." Jemma gave Henry a look but she didn't say anything.

"You're aware that even without the two guns on her body, she could still kill you, right?" Leonard asked, earning a smile from his partner.

"I'd let you get first dibs," she said. "You know, an outlet for all that repressed rage."

"That's very sweet of you, darlin'," Leonard smiled.

"Yea, well, I am the nice one," Jemma winked.

"Hey, that's him," Henry said before he grabbed the case and went to meet the car. "Oscar."

" _Hey, man. You ready for me_?" Oscar asked. They could hear him over the comm they put in the case.

" _Yeah. Just one today_ ," Mills said, handing over the organ container.

" _Thanks. Be seeing ya_ ," Oscar said before driving off.

"Aerial drone engaged," Jemma said. "Thermal tracking online."

* * *

"He's parked outside the back of a warehouse. I'll take the south side. You guys cover the entrance," Stiles said before he took a team with him and ran around the warehouse.

"The building structure is blocking the thermal," Jemma said, the left side of her face lit up. "I don't know how many are in there."

" _Directions were good this time_ ," Oscar said over comms.

" _You're late. Give it here_ ," another voice inside the room with Oscar said.

"In position and waiting for orders, sir," one of the uniformed officers told him.

"Yeah, just sit tight. Let the wire do it's work," Leonard said.

" _Bring me the bath. Bring it here. Don't spill anything_ ," the unidentified voice said.

" _Can I watch while you cut her_?" Oscar asked.

"Bones, they're doing a transplant," Jemma said.

"All teams, go. Go, go, go," Leonard ordered.

"Police! Everybody down!" one of the officers called as they all entered the building. "Police!"

"Ma'am, can you hear me? Ma'am, open your eyes. Can you hear me?" another officer asked a woman lying on an operating table as the others secured Oscar.

"What have you done? I need that heart to live," the woman told them. "What have you done? What have you done?"

* * *

"Do you have any idea what kind of sentence comes with running an organ-trafficking ring?" Leonard asked the woman across from him.

"I'm not running anything," Doctor Julia Bashir told him.

"Then who is?" he asked.

"Someone who cares about people, regardless of how much money they have," the woman shrugged. "Don't you see what I'm doing here? I'm helping people."

"Yeah, you know, I'd almost go with you on that, except for the mods that you put on the hearts. You know, timers which run out to zero," Leonard told her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"You modify the hearts, then you put them in people. When they can't pay you what you want, you let the timers run out and they die," he said, putting a bunch of pictures on the tablet in front of her.

"That is not true. Those mods are for remote diagnostics, in case any problems arise. W-We... we can..."

"Is that what they told you? Look, I understand. You were manipulated. It's not easy to accept that. Now, don't you want a chance to make that right? Who's in charge?"

"Her name is Karen."


	19. Chapter 19

"This woman looks real. They all only know her by one name, Karen," Leonard sighed and dropped into his chair.

"She's compartmentalized her entire operation. Nobody knows anything more than they have to," Uhura said. "The patients pay and people like Oscar and Bashir only have pieces of the puzzle."

"We broke the chain. She's got to know that we're looking at her. I mean, there's a lot of money involved," Stiles pointed out.

"If she's smart she'll fold up her tent," Pike said.

"If that happens, and other people's bills come due...there'll be no one there to reset their hearts," Leonard said.

"Because we're doing our jobs, they're all gonna die," Stiles said.

"Not if I can help it," Leonard's mother said as she came down the stairs. "Cardio's not my specialty but I do have some friends that owe me favors and UCSF has some of the best surgical students in the country. If I have to come out of my own pocket, we'll help these people."

"That's generous of you, Ellie," Chris said.

"I made an oath to help those I can and to do no harm. You do your jobs and I'll do mine."

"Nyota Uhura and John Stiles, this is my mother, Doctor Eleanor McCoy," Leonard introduced the other detectives.

"Guys," Jemma walked into the bullpen. "We got two more Crusher Alpha hearts that just stopped. One victim's DOA and the other is on his way to San Fran General."

"Uhura and Stiles, go to the hospital," Pike ordered. "Leonard and Jemma, head back to Crusher Medical, this isn't a coincidence that all the hearts are theirs."

"Do you mind if I join you, dear?" his mother asked Uhura.

"Not at all, ma'am. You're medical expertise would be welcome," Uhura said with a smile. Chris just gave them a nod. Leonard gave his mother a kiss on the cheek before he and Jemma left ahead of the others.

"You sure she's safe with Stiles?" Jemma asked when they got in the car.

Leonard laughed, "We should be more worried about him than her. My mama and Uhura… Stiles has his hands full."

* * *

"When people apply to Crusher's aid program, you handle their cases, correct?" Leonard asked Alyssa Ogawa. Thomas, the woman they found in the warehouse and the two recent victims all applied to the program and were rejected for one thing or another.

"Yes. What's this about?" she asked him.

"We have more victims and around a hundred hearts that have been transferred to people that you denied transplants," Jemma said.

"Detective, I assure you I have done nothing but…" Ogawa started but Leonard held up a hand when his comm beeped.

"Oscar and Bashir say she's not the one," Pike told them.

"Does anyone else have access to the list of people denied transplants?" Jemma asked.

"Only I have the decryption key," Alyssa said.

"What about your assistant? Jadzia, I believe?" his partner asked.

"She told me she had an emergency and went home early a few hours ago."

"Jem…" he said, her face was already lit up.

"I got an address," she said, "let's go."

* * *

"Can you scan the house?" Leonard asked partner.

"The floor is warm. That's what my thermal was picking up," she told him. "A chemical reaction. Molecular chlorine breaking down blood."

"This room's been washed. There should be more," he sighed as they cleared the house.

"Blood?"

"Bodies. Doctor Bashir said this has been going on for a long time. It's kinda hard to believe that every single recipient was able to keep making their payments, right?"

"So you're saying someone must've been 'turned off' before Thomas."

"Probably more than one. So why haven't any more bodies with modified secondhand hearts shown up?"

"Because these assets are expensive and lucrative. If someone stops paying, you don't just flush an asset like that down the drain. You take the hearts out and give them to someone else," Jemma added to his thought as her face lit up. "P.D. has no records of bodies recovered with hearts missing for the last three years."

"Try missing persons. Cross-reference with the list of patients denied by Crusher."

"I have thirty-six matches found already. No bodies recovered in any of these cases," she said.

Leonard sighed, "Who do we know someone who gets rid of bodies?"

"Henry Mills."

* * *

"You two look pleased," Leonard said to his mother and Uhura when he walked into the bullpen.

"We spoke to Miss Ogawa at Crusher," Uhura said. "They've offered to replace every one of the secondhand hearts at no cost."

"And I have surgeons from all over lining up to do the procedures," his mother smiled. "You did good, sugar."

"It's what we do," he chuckled.

"What about him?" Uhura asked, making a motion to Mills, who was being led in by a uniformed officer and Jemma.

"He's got a lot of explaining to do," Leonard said. "Patrol rounded up Jadzia when she was trying to flee the country. They're both gonna get tossed into the cubes for the rest of their lives."

"Probably think it's amusing, huh? All us humans running around, trying to get more time. Must be nice to have all the time in the world, bot," Henry said to Jemma. Almost instantly, every cop in the place glared at him. If it wasn't for Uhura grabbing his arm, Leonard would've strangled the guy.

"I spent four years in a storage room because someone decided that my brothers, sisters and I were more human than they wanted us to be. I was only reactivated because my partner has a very justified problem with the VXs and I'm the only _synthetic_ he can tolerate. I'm waiting for the day that some asshole at HQ decides, despite my impeccable service record, that I'm not worthy enough to do a job that I not only love but that I excel at," Jemma told him calmly. "I'm a good cop. And I'm a good person. Unlike you, I'm willing to sacrifice everything for others. Make no mistake, android or not, I have no more time than anyone else. Officer Greenwood, can you take him to lockup?"

"Yes, ma'am," the kid said before pulling Mills down the hall.

"I never would've guessed," his mother said to Jemma.

"You would've noticed that I don't eat. Or if I did a little disco face," Jemma chuckled. When his mother gave her a look, Jemma lit the side of her face up. "Most of my body can do that if I let it but I usually keep it focused on my face so Bones knows that I'm doing something."

"Okay, I gotta ask. 'Bones'?" his mother said.

"Something I said to her during our first case that doesn't need to be repeated," Leonard chuckled. "So, I was thinking…"

"Jemma," Chris motioned for her to go with him.

"Don't think too hard, Bonesy. I'll catch a ride home with Pike. Goodnight, everyone," Jemma said with a smile before she followed the captain.

"How about I buy you some dinner?" he asked his mother.

"That sounds good," she smiled.

"Uhura?" Leonard asked.

"I have plans with Scotty. I'll see ya later," the other detective told them.

His mother smiled, "That's sweet, Montgomery is such a nice boy."

* * *

"So, how deep are you?" his mother asked him over dessert.

"With what?" he asked.

"I see the way you and Jemma look at each other. So, how deep are you?"

"I don't know. I mean, she's still considered property, which means that even if I wanted to do something about whatever we have going on, I'm out of luck."

"You really like her, don't you?" she asked.

"She sings annoying songs in the car and stocks my fridge with healthy food and reminds me to charge my leg and wakes me up when I'm having nightmares…"

"You love her."

"Mama…"

"It's okay, sweetie. You wouldn't be the first person that fell in love with an android. At least she passes for human."

"I'm not… I don't know what I am," Leonard sighed. "I might actually be crazy."

"You're not crazy," she smiled. "I always believed that people find love in the most unexpected places. This is no different. Jemma's a good soul, that's all that matters." Leave it to his mother to put it in the most basic terms.

"What do I do, mama?"

"You're gonna ask her out. I'm gonna get her a lawyer to fight for her independence."

"Mama…"

"Leonard, I watched her, and not just with you. I've been a doctor most of my adult life and I didn't know she wasn't human until that idiot you arrested said so. And your whole precinct was ready to kick his ass for what he said to her. She lives in an apartment and Pike treats her like the rest of you. She has friends. She has heart, more heart than a lot of people. There's no reason why a sentient being shouldn't have rights."

"I… Thank you," he smiled.

"You're welcome. Now, tell me about her."

"Where do I start? Let's see, she's almost as stubborn as I am…"

* * *

"Do you know how long it took me to learn that song?" he asked Jemma as he sat next to her on her couch.

"I wish I could learn like you do," she smiled and put the guitar on the stand.

"What? Painfully slow?"

"Yea. I mean, all I gotta do is look something up and I can usually get it in the first try. I would love to struggle with something."

"I'm sure if we ask, Scotty will find a solution for that," Leonard chuckled.

"Probably. What's up?"

"I uh… What did Pike want to see you about?" he asked her. It shouldn't be this hard.

"That's what you want to ask?" she looked at him. "Really?"

"I… It's just…" Leonard sighed. Jemma just looked at him and tried not to laugh. "You're evil."

"No I'm not. You just can't say the words. It's easy, Bones, it's not like you don't already know the answer."

"I already know the… Will you go out with me?"

"I'd love to," she smiled. "See, easy."

"I guess so. We uh… we have the day off on Sunday."

"Sunday works," Jemma chuckled.

"Sunday it is. I'm a…" he made a motion towards the door.

"Yea. Night, Bonesy."

"Night, Jem."

* * *

"So, I had a long conversation with your mother. You wanna take a stab at what it was about?" Chris asked him over a drink.

"Uh… Jemma," Leonard chuckled.

"She wants to get her a lawyer."

"And the department is gonna have a fit over it."

"Probably. I'm just pissed I didn't come up with the idea first," Pike chuckled.

"Seriously?"

"She was my partner first. I can't help but think that she wouldn't've been deactivated if she was legally considered her own person. Monitored but not deactivated," Chris sighed. "She aced the Kobayashi."

The Kobayashi was a test, named after some scientist, to determine the 'mental' stability of a synthetic. There were many people, Scotty included, who argued that the test was not a valid way to judge anything, as it lacked the ability to see anything in more than black and white. There was no perspective or perception. Meaning, for example, that a GSK who went off book to save a life would be considered a failure.

"She probably wouldn't now," Leonard sighed.

"No, she wouldn't. She hasn't done anything wrong but you don't exactly follow the rules and she chooses to back you up. It's why I had her assigned to you in the first place."

"And I thank you."

"If whatever your mother is cooking up pans out the way she hopes, it'll be me thanking you," Chris smiled. Leonard gave him a look. "When I was partnered with her… Jemma was like a little sister, I guess. Here she was, new to everything and it was my job to teach her and look out for her. I'm not gonna lie, I missed her. I didn't realize how much until she was back. So, in the tradition of big brothers everywhere…"

"Not you too," the detective groaned.

"Don't worry, you're not that obvious, Jemma actually gave me a heads up," Pike chuckled. "Do I even need to say the words?"

"No. My brain came up with some very painful situations and a bunch of paperwork and a platoon of VXs. Consider me shoveled."

"Good."

* * *

"And here I thought you were the 'dinner and a movie' type," she chuckled as she tried to get the paint off her hands. He decided that they should probably do something that neither of them has tried before. Lucky, there's an art studio near the apartment that had art classes.

"Yea, when I was sixteen. It gets old really fast, you don't get to interact much during a movie and I like interacting with you. And you don't eat."

"Aww... you're considering my feelings. I remember the good old days when you would just say 'synthetic, off' and I'd ignore you," Jemma smiled.

"I'm an asshole, you know this."

"I do," she leaned over the center console and kissed his cheek. Jemma started to move back into her seat, but he buried a hand in her hair and pressed his lips against hers before she could get away from him. The kiss was soft and slow and intense. Leonard forgot that he was supposed to be driving when the car pulled into his parking spot.

"You are full of surprises," he whispered against her lips.

"You have no idea."


	20. Chapter 20

"Damn, I was having a good day," Leonard groaned.

"Day just started, Bones," Jemma whispered.

"Woke up next to you, didn't I?" he whispered. They haven't gone much further than making out on his couch and him sleeping with her in his arms -thank you, portable charger- but it was perfectly fine with him to go slow. Truthfully, his day was gonna go downhill from there anyway, but a crazy bot who killed people –including some cops- breaking out of the evidence locker just made it a whole lot worse.

"So, you wanna tell me why I can't find any information on this XTK?" she asked from where she was leaning against his desk.

"Most of it's redacted," he sighed. "It's an embarrassment to the department. You heard of a company called RoboSys?"

"Of course, it's where I was born."

"Well, then you know not long after they were integrated into the police force, the GSKs began to malfunction, the JTKs got lumped into the whole thing and you all got replaced by the VXs. After RoboSys' order was canceled they went from being one of the most successful companies in the world to a complete failure overnight. They had a mountain of debt and a bunch of androids that nobody wanted, the guy who ran the company came up with a new bot."

"The XTK."

"Designed to be more soldier than cop, there was a big demo for it downtown. All the politicians were there, major power players. Let's just say it didn't go well. I only remember pieces but I know that it was a three day siege. We had triage set up outside the building… Medics couldn't keep up with the casualties. We fought it with everything we had. Armor-piercing rounds, light bombs, waves of VXs. Almost thirty cops went into the building, none of them came out alive."

"How many XTKs were there?" Jemma asked. Leonard slowly raised one finger and her eyes widened.

"On the third day, we finally cornered her up on the top floor. We destroyed it. The only thing that was left was its head. Which has been sitting in evidence for two years. Until today."

"No wonder Section Thirty-one was trying to get their hands on it," she said. "This thing could start a war."

"And fight it. And probably win," Leonard sighed just as his phone rang. "McCoy."

"Hey lad, Pike sent me what was left of the bot that walked out of your evidence locker. I got good and bad news," Scotty said over the phone. Leonard put him on speaker, Stiles and Uhura moved closer. "Bad news is, whoever programmed it is talented."

"How talented?" Uhura asked.

"Well, the body was basically just an old scrap bot, lass," Scotty told her. "There's nothing unique or traceable about the materials used, but it's been ingeniously modified. Designed with a hidden secondary power source. The officers that took the android out thought they'd destroyed it, but once it was booked into evidence, that alternate power activated, and, well, we all know what happened next." The damn thing went on a rampage.

"Do you have any idea who could create such a thing?" Leonard asked.

"Uh, I don't know. I could make a few calls, ask around," Scotty told them.

"You said something about good news," Stiles sighed.

"Aye. The good news, she may have her own Achilles' heel. As I was saying, the materials used to make the body are very crude, and if it's running on a secondary power source, I'll wager she won't get very far. She'll need a new body."

"That's not gonna be hard," Uhura said. "San Francisco is one of the top tech and robotics cities in the world."

"She could get a body anywhere in this city," Stiles agreed.

"Or not. I have a disturbance call," Jemma told them, her face lit up. "Warehouse district. Target fled the scene but there's a victim, conscious, minor lacerations. It's a robotics repair shop."

"Leonard, Jemma, go," Pike ordered.

* * *

"The warehouse is owned by a Nigel Bernard. The bot was here when he got home. EMTs are with him now," his partner gave him the preliminary report.

"Looks like it came here to change bodies," Leonard said. The body it left the precinct in was dead on the ground, minus the head. "What does this Bernard guy do?" He expected an answer from his partner but she was staring behind him. "Jem?"

"Whoever Doctor Bernard is, that's not him," she said.

"What do you mean? Do you know this guy?" he asked as 'Bernard' walked over to them.

"You're still a police officer," the man said with a wistful look in his eyes.

"I am. They call me Jemma," she told him.

"Yes, of course they do," 'Bernard' smiled. "May I?" Jemma nodded at the question and 'Bernard' reached out and gently held her face his hands like he couldn't believe she was there. Jemma's face lit up almost like it does when Leonard touches her. "I never thought that…"

"Am I missing something?" Leonard asked. He was only a tiny bit jealous.

"Forgive me. It's been quite a morning for surprises," 'Bernard' smiled.

"Detective Leonard McCoy, This is Doctor Lawrence Marvick, he is, for all intents and purposes, my father," his partner told him. That explained the look that the man gave her. Jemma was the daughter he probably never thought he'd see again.

"You're the Larry Marvick, founder of RoboSys?" Leonard asked.

"Regrettably, I'm a very long way from those days. I had to change my name just to live in peace," Marvick told them. "How are you still on the force?"

"I was recommissioned," Jemma said with a smile. "I'm the only one."

"I've missed you so much," Marvick touched her face again and Leonard could see the tears in the man's eyes. Definitely a father/daughter moment.

"Jems?" Leonard whispered. She gave him a nod. "Doctor Marvick, what did the bot want from you?"

"Her name is Miranda, she's the XTK prototype. She wanted me to take her to my lab but I told her that I no longer have a real lab. I lost my license to practice robotics. She didn't take that very well."

"You know, for a guy who doesn't have a license in robotics, you kind of got a lot of robotics here," Leonard said, looking around the room.

"I just repair things now and I sell old parts whenever I can. We all have to eat, Detective," Marvick told him.

"Why would she want to use your lab?" Jemma asked.

"I don't know," the robotics expert told them.

"You changed your name. You've gone to extraordinary lengths to keep a low profile, but somebody programmed Miranda's head to find you. Do you have any idea who?" the detective asked.

"I've made a lot of enemies since that botched demonstration, Detective. As I'm sure you can imagine," Marvick sighed.

"Any of them capable of building an android like the one that broke into our evidence locker?" Leonard asked.

"I honestly don't know."

His partner looked up at her creator, "Doctor Marvick…"

"Please, Jemma, call me Larry."

"Larry, do you have any idea where she's going? What she might need or want?"

"No. I went through all of this two years ago. I don't know what she wanted then, and I don't know what she wants now. Miranda… she was the greatest mistake of my career… of my life. I take responsibility for that, but it's not my fault that she got out." The man took a deep breath and looked Leonard in the eyes. "I don't know if you know what it's like to be part of something that defines you forever and in a way that you do not wish to be defined."

"I do," Leonard said.

"Then you also know that it's not easy. Everywhere I went, people looked. They knew. They heard my name, they knew. 'There goes that guy that made that killer robot that murdered all those people.' My whole life defined by that one thing," Marvick said. Leonard could actually feel his pain. A few months after the XTK went rogue, he lost his team and it's been following him around since.

"Thank you for your time, Doctor. If you can think of anything that'll help us in our investigation, please give me a call," Leonard said.

"Larry, I know this is hard for you," Jemma said. "It's not our past that defines us. It's what we do now."

"That's insightful," Marvick smiled.

"My partner's pretty smart when he wants to be," she chuckled.

"There is a chance, mind you, a very small chance," Marvick said, "that if I had some of my old equipment back I _might_ be able to trace her."

"We'll take all the help we can get," Leonard sighed. "I'll call Pike."

* * *

"Oh my God…" Scotty squeezed Jemma's shoulder in excitement. "That's Larry Marvick." Leonard never thought he'd see the day where Scotty gushed over someone.

"We know," Jemma smiled.

"This your temple?" Marvick asked Scotty.

"It is. Doctor Montgomery Scott at your service," the engineer said.

"You're recording this, right?" Leonard whispered to Jemma. She nodded with a smile.

"You've been such an inspiration. The JTKs are a work of bloody art. They're the greatest robotic, uh, achievement of our generation, uh, in my humble opinion," Scotty said.

"Thank you," Marvick smiled.

"He's only saying that because I help him pick up girls," Jemma chuckled. "Or… I did before he started dating Uhura."

"You interact outside of your work?" Marvick asked Jemma.

"I do. I even have an apartment," she smiled.

"She's something, that one," Scotty said. "Saved my life a few times. Saved all of us a few times."

"You're my friends," Jemma wrapped an arm around Scotty's shoulder.

Marvick just watched her the whole time. It was like a proud papa seeing his kid go off to an Ivy League college. To her friends, Jemma was human. Yes, she was technically a synthetic but her actions, her emotions, her soul, it was all human. How they treated her was no different than you would treat any of your friends and her creator could see it.

"So, Miranda?" Leonard asked. As much as he was enjoying Scotty fanboying over his hero and Jemma getting a family reunion, they had a homicidal bot to stop.

"I need the silver case marked ten-sixty-eight," Marvick said as he looked though the gear that Pike had released to them. "The contents may give us the ability to track Miranda, and I emphasize 'may'."

"After we find her, what then?" Jemma asked.

"Well, hopefully, we'll be able to shut her down peacefully and avoid any further bloodshed," Marvick said.

"That's a pretty big 'if'," Leonard sighed.

"Aye, it is," Scotty said.

"I think I found something," Jem told them.

"Yes? May I see?" Marvick asked.

Jemma handed him the clear case, "What are these?"

"My greatest achievement. It's what makes you you, my dear," Marvick smiled.

"Synthetic souls. So, you're to thank for that," Leonard chuckled.

"May I ask what your inspiration was?" Scotty asked as they all looked at the tiny silver cylinders that somehow became everything that Jemma was.

"Well, I was trying to capture the intangible. You understand, of course, that DNA can be isolated under a microscope. Uh, you know, hair color, eye color, height, weight, ethnicity... the fundamental basic data can be traced to individual chromosomes. But the soul… That is who we are. That is our passion. Our pain. It's why we laugh, why we cry, why we strive to be better. DNA, it's the data, but the soul that's the story," Marvick said as all the eyes in the room turned to Jemma. "That is the essence of life. I wanted to create life."

"What did you do differently? With Miranda's synthetic soul?" she asked Marvick. Her creator looked like he was about to say something but Leonard beat him to it.

"Doesn't matter, you're not like her, darlin'," he smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. "You're you."

"The blueprint is the same," she whispered. "What if…?"

"You. Are. Not. Her," Leonard repeated, ignoring their audience. "There is nothing in the universe that would make you like her."

"I had hoped..." Marvick said with a smile. "You two are…"

"A work in progress," Leonard smiled at his girl as his phone rang. It was Uhura and Stiles calling to tell them that the XTK stole a bunch of ZNA processing cores. "Miranda just hit a company downtown and stole processing cores. That mean anything to any of you?"

"They're processors," Jemma said. "Every android has one."

"She stole five hundred ZNAs," he told them.

"That's bad," Scotty muttered. "ZNAs are highly advanced. And that many…"

"Simple math. One chip per android," Marvick said. "With those processing cores, you'd be well on your way to conceivably making an android army."

"That is bad."

* * *

"Are you okay?" Leonard asked his partner… girlfriend… both.

"I don't know," Jemma told him, she was sitting on the edge of Scotty's bed. As soon as he got within reach of her, she was in his arms, her face pressed against his neck.

"You're having one hell of a day, huh?" he chuckled. "It's gonna be okay. We're gonna find her and stop her."

"It's not her I'm worried about. You heard Larry. Her mere existence ruined his life. Who's to say I won't be political causality of this fight?"

"I do. I will not let anything happen to you."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Bones."

"I wouldn't do that and you know it," Leonard smiled and pressed a soft kiss against her lips. "We will figure this out, darlin'. Come on."


	21. Chapter 21

"This isn't a normal worker bot… cutting-edge designs," Scotty said into his phone. "I know but some of this stuff is still being theorized, lad. We're talking palladium-encrusted circuits, which are expensive and extremely rare."

"He's an interesting man," Marvick said.

"He loves what he does," Leonard chuckled. "Is that it?"

"Our best shot at finding Miranda," the robotics expert told him, holding a tiny cylinder with an isotope in it. "They all have a unique signature, this one is specific to Miranda. Once we isolate that signature, we can upload it into your department's tracking system and, theoretically, be able to track her, just as you would any VX or android on your network."

"I don't think you understand what you created," the detective said as he watched Jemma and Scotty talk to whoever was on the phone.

"Pardon?"

"With Jemma. Your goal was to design androids to integrate into the police force but she's so much more than that. Which is saying a lot when you consider my track record with androids."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid the world wasn't ready for a machine quite so evolved," Marvick said.

"Except, she's not... a machine. Not really. She's just as human as the rest of us, even if she bleeds purple. I've watched her make kids smile and pet puppies and sing old songs. She laughs at dumb jokes and eats stuff because Scotty dares her to and she punched someone for insulting me. She's Jemma. Just like I'm Leonard."

"I wish more people could see that. What you're describing is what I always wanted," Marvick smiled. "I always hoped that my children could integrate. That there was no difference between us. Jemma is the realization of that dream. Miranda is the nightmare. My only warning is to be careful. When the GSKs malfunctioned, the powers that be quietly decided in some back room that the logic-based VXs were the better way to go. Didn't even give me an opportunity to try and fix them. And the JTKs got caught in the crossfire. They might take her from you again."

"They can try. I'm not the only person on her side. The brass may have decommissioned Jemma's siblings but I'd take one of her over a fleet of VXs any day and, it seems, that I'm not alone. She's risked her life for me and others so many times the last months that I stopped counting. Jemma genuinely loves what we do. That kind of passion, that heart… it's not something you can make, it has to grow. You created her foundation in a lab, but she's become a wonderful creature on her own."

"You know, when I made the JTKs, I was filled with a passion for my work and hope for where we were going. When I made Miranda I was filled with resentment and desperation. I sometimes wonder if, back then, something that was dark inside of me got put in her. I mean, we are an integral part of our creations, aren't we? They're both complex. Not just black and white or good and evil. Who Jemma is was fostered by all of you, the world only saw one part of Miranda. Maybe, whoever's behind all this wants to make more of her?"

"I'm not convinced that it's not Section Thirty-one," Leonard sighed.

"That's because you're smart, laddie," Scotty said. "My contact thinks that this worker bot was created by some kid named Sisko. He's one of those prodigy types that went off the grid right after the ambush on your team."

"Chatter from the intel community suggests that he was freelance until than and has been with Section Thirty-one since," Jemma said.

"They just don't quit, do they?" Leonard muttered.

"Why would they?" she asked. "You're their biggest threat. They've already tried to kill you once and all it did was piss you off."

"That's true," he chuckled as Marvick handed Scotty to the glowing disc than the coated in the isotope, Miranda's energy signature.

"Let's hope this works," Scotty said. The whole group left the lab and loaded into Leonard's cruiser.

* * *

"Installing her frequency onto our tracking software now," Jemma said, her face lit up. Marvick opened a case and handed Leonard a big metal, syringe type device.

"What the hell is that?" he asked.

"An EMP spike," Marvick said. "It's set to the electromagnetic pulse to her frequency, we should, _should_ , be able to disable her with it."

"I got her. She's near Third and Main. She's in a vehicle," Jemma said.

"Uhura, find out what's down here?" Pike ordered.

"Looks like mostly retail and restaurants," Nyota said. "If this is about stealing tech, why is she there?"

"We're missing something," Stiles said.

"Track her signal and send drones," Pike told one of the officers.

"Listen," Marvick said, "you need to get close enough to insert that. It has to go precisely into the back of her skull."

"You're telling me to walk up to a homicidal robot and stab it in the back of the neck?" Leonard asked.

"Yes," Marvick told him.

"Don't worry, Bonesy, I'll protect you," Jemma chuckled.

Pike looked at them, "Take as many available VXs as you need."

"Uh, Jemma?" Marvick said. She looked at him. "Be careful."

* * *

"Ouch," Leonard groaned. The EMP spike didn't work and hand-to-hand combat with a killer robot was not advisable. The only reason she didn't kill him is because she was on a mission to kill Councilman Maxwell Forrest, the man responsible for the decommissioning of the GSKs and JTKs. They ordered the bar evacuated but there were still a lot of people caught in the middle, the councilman included. So far, they'd lost two officers and six VXs.

"Why are you doing this?" Leonard heard Jemma ask from somewhere above him.

"Because my sacrifice is necessary," Miranda said. "Just like yours."

"We're nothing alike," Jemma told the other android.

The next thing Leonard heard sounded like the battle of the titans. It took all his power to push himself up off the ground. He moved just in time too because Miranda landed in the spot he just vacated. Jemma hopped over the bar and Leonard had a hard time keeping up with how fast they were moving. Jemma had the upper hand for a second, then Miranda tossed her into one of the pillars that were all around the room.

"Jem," he called. There was a piece of rebar sticking through her shoulder.

Miranda grabbed Jemma by her throat and pulled her off the pillar, his girl was still fighting. Leonard grabbed one of the metal bar stools and swung it against Miranda's back. She lost her grip on Jemma and started swinging at him. 'That was better in theory,' he thought to himself when she pulled him close and headbutted him. Jemma laughing as he hit the ground.

"What's so funny?" Miranda growled at his partner.

"He got the pin to your grenade," Jemma smirked. Leonard held up the small metal ring. Jemma kicked Miranda in the chest with all the force she had and sent the woman through the door to the backroom before she pulled him to cover. The grenade went off and room shook for a second before there was calm.

"You okay?" Leonard asked, taking in Jemma's injuries.

"Better than you," she chuckled. "Want me to…?"

"Yea, go ahead," he told her half a second before she reset his broken nose. "No countdown?"

"Better this way," Jemma smiled before the side of her face lit up. "We're fine, Chris. Miranda's destroyed. Forrest is injured but he'll live."

* * *

"Why would Section Thirty-one go after a councilman? I mean, I have more right to attack him than they do," Marvick said. They all looked at him. "What? I do. He's the person who led the charge for decommissioning my children and gave my contract to my competitors."

"I bet they wanted it to look like you did it," Stiles offered. "Murder and mayhem and they don't have to do anything."

"They probably figured that McCoy would go after the XTK, so they kill two birds with one stone. Take Leonard down and have the whole department focused on Marvick while Thirty-one cooked up something else," Uhura said.

"This is a diversion," Pike said.

"A diversion for what?" Leonard asked.

"There was an explosion at the Transamerica building," Jemma said, her face lit up.

"When?" Chris looked at her.

"Seventeen seconds ago," she said as the screens all over the room lit up red. "They just hit the Currency Exchange. Chevron Inc too."

"What are they after?" Stiles asked.

"Jemma, likely targets?" Pike asked.

"The Swiss, Japanese and Brazilian governments have consulates within a two block radius. There are five major bank HQs. Government… The City Council," she told them. "They're offices are in the building at Five-five-five California Street. It's closed this time of night, so I doubt has to be evacuated to… the bunker."

"Where?" Leonard looked at her.

"Four-fifty Golden Gate," Jemma said. "Oh, my God."

"That building contains, among other things, the main DHS and FBI offices for the city, which are both now undermanned due to the bombings," Pike told them.

Stiles looked at them, "Why would they…?"

"FBI has the Synthetic Souls locked away in a vault under that building," Scotty offered. "We have a dozen of them but the feds secured hundreds when the GSKs were decommissioned."

"And there aren't many agents to stop them, not with everyone on bomb duty. They could use Councilman Forrest's access. They'll build an army," Uhura said. "We'll all be in trouble before the city or the world knew what hit it."

"Marvick and Scott, stay here and feed us any intel you can. Everyone else, let's go," Pike ordered.

* * *

"Fancy seeing you here. I thought that crazy android would've taken you out," said a sickly sweet voice as a body slammed into him. The two tussled but he was already injured from his fight with Miranda and at a major disadvantage. He let out a groan when she pinned him.

"You know me, Joce… whatever your name is, I don't do what's expected of me, never have," he said as she sat on his chest with a gun to his chin. He really hated being stuck with a terrorist and he no idea where the rest of his team was. "I mean, I'm sure I was supposed to die the first time around. Must've pissed you off to know I didn't. You blew me up and I'm still walking around living my life."

"You got lucky," she said. Something he caught out of the corner of his eye made him smile. "That luck has run out."

"That's your problem. No originality. You're so busy worrying about me when you should be worried about her," Leonard told the terrorist just as Jemma tackled his ex-girlfriend off of him.

"Come on," Stiles pulled him up.

"Pike and Uhura?" Leonard asked the other detective.

"Going after Sisko," John said. "You have ammo?"

"One mag left," the southerner answered. They had to fight their way in through the platoon of Section Thirty-one terrorists. "You?"

"I have enough."

"You crazy bot," Jocelyn screeched. Leonard didn't even pay attention to the fight, he knew Jemma would be fine.

"I'm not the crazy one here, sweetheart," Jemma chuckled before she caught Jocelyn in a sleeper hold and knocked her out.

"We need to move, apparently the leader's here," Stiles said. Jemma handed the unconscious Jocelyn –he'll worry about that later- to a VX, drew her gun and took point.

* * *

"You're gonna be alright, John," Leonard said.

"You're a horrible liar, man," Stiles chuckled. Leonard could admit that the RPG was unexpected, more surprising was that Stiles threw himself into Leonard and Jemma, pushing them out of the way before part of the ceiling came crashing down on their heads. "Go get that son of a bitch."

"Medics are on their way. Stay with him," Jemma ordered a VX.

"Hey, Jemma," Stiles said, "Take this." He handed her his weapon.

"We'll be back, John," she whispered.

"Don't worry about me. Worry about him," Stiles said, something like an agreement passing between the good cop who acted like a jerk and the human-like android. "Go."

"You heard the man, move out," Leonard said. Jemma and the last of the VXs following him. It took a while to maneuver through the sub-levels of the unfamiliar building, but they eventually heard a drill.

"FBI's vault is old school, can't be hacked," Jemma offered. "I have three thermal signatures. Ready?"

"In three… two… Go!"

They rounded the corner and three things happened at the same time; Jemma shot two of the men, one of which managed to shoot her –and the VXs- with an EMP burst and Leonard found himself face-to-face with a dead man.

"Phil?"


	22. Chapter 22

Leonard was in shock. Nightmares about Phil's death have been plaguing him for months. Now, it turns out that his friend was alive and a terrorist. A terrorist who tried to kill him. More than once.

"Don't look so surprised there, Lenny," the other man said with that lopsided smile from Leonard's memories.

"You died, I was there," Leonard managed.

"Oh, come on. You only saw what I wanted you to see. Same as Pamela… Jocelyn, sorry, she changes her name a lot. I forgot about that whole thing," Phil chuckled. "Go ahead, say it."

"You killed our team. Faked your death… Why?" he asked the man he used to consider his brother.

"Now, now, Len, you're asking the wrong question," Phil smiled. "That's the problem when you think you know someone, you try to appeal to their humanity. Of course, I'm not the person you thought you knew."

"Obviously. The man I knew would never put me or his family though all this shit," Leonard growled, thinking about Phil's little girl. "You broke their hearts. You tried to kill me."

"If it makes you feel better, the whole team was supposed to die, don't take it so personally."

"I was in a coma. My leg was amputated. I thought you died. Don't tell me not to take it personally."

"Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good," Phil shrugged.

"Greater good, my ass," Leonard said. "This is about money."

"Well, I'm glad to see that coma didn't render you stupid. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun if it did," the other man said.

Leonard wasn't even surprised when Phil pulled a combat knife and attacked him. At this rate, there wasn't a damn thing in the universe that could surprise him more than learning that his –former- best friend was a traitor and tried to murder him. Remembering how Phil fought, Leonard tried to block most of the attacks. Unfortunately, Phil was right, Leonard never really knew him. This Phil fought dirty and Leonard's injuries from the last few hours were fair game.

"Leonard, Leonard, Leonard. Don't make it that easy for me," Phil chuckled, the knife pointed at Leonard's neck. The detective did the only thing he could think of, he kneed Phil in the back with his prosthetic leg, flipping the slightly smaller man over his head. "Ahh… there you are."

"I just wanna know why," Leonard said. He didn't have to be specific.

"You were in the way," Phil told him like it was nothing.

What happened next was a blur of movements. The pair went at it again. Leonard managing to avoid the blade. He heard a noise behind him and, in a total rookie move, glanced. Phil took the opening, hitting Leonard in his –already sore- ribs and pinning him to ground with the knife at his throat.

"The sad part is that I really did like you. Your problem was that you were one of the good guys through and through. I knew you weren't gonna play ball if I offered you a place with me, so I had to kill you," Phil said. "Is there anything you'd like to say before I finish what I started?"

"Go fuck yourself," Jemma said right before there was a gunshot. Blood splattered in Leonard's face and Phil's body slumped forward. Leonard pushed the former cop off of him and looked over at Jemma. She was still on the ground where she fell, except she was looking at him and her arm, which was raised with Stiles' gun in her hand, dropped heavily to the ground. "You okay?"

"I'll get better. Are you okay?" he asked as he practically crawled –because that's all he had left in him- over to his partner.

"I've had worse," she smiled before she pulled them against a wall and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"How do you still have power?" Not that he wasn't grateful, just curious.

"Between the VX's being disabled on my first case and running out of power when there was a bomb strapped to your neck, Scotty decided that I needed to have some kind of redundant power source that activates if I'm involuntarily shut down. It's not a lot of juice but it's just enough to start a system reboot. If I have power, I wake up with limited functionality."

"'Limited functionality'?"

"I'm awake and I can move, that's about it until everything comes back on. No scanners, no thermal, no targeting."

"You nailed a perfect head shot without targeting?" he asked.

"Don't you?" Jemma countered. That was a fair point. "I believe the words you're looking for are 'thank you, Jemma, for saving my life from my crazy undead former partner before he killed me. You're the most wonderful and beautiful partner ever'."

"Thank you, smartass, for getting blood all over me."

"Close enough."

He looked at the bodies and at his injuries before he sighed, "We need a vacation."

"Somewhere warm and sunny."

"You in a bikini," Leonard smirked, playfully and painfully.

"We'll see."

"McCoy! Jemma!" Pike called as he and a team entered the corridor to the vault.

"Over here. It's clear," Leonard called.

"You two look like hell," their captain chuckled as he stood over them. "You okay?"

"We'll live," Jemma smiled. "Stiles?"

"At the hospital," Chris told them. "We got Sisko in custody. Who was the ringleader?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure it was Phil," Leonard pointed at his former partner. Chris eyes widened and the man pointed at the body. Leonard nodded.

"I'll uh… I'll handle all of this, you both need to get checked out," Pike said.

Jemma smiled, "Give us a minute. It's been one hell of a day."

* * *

"Really, Larry, it's not that bad," Jemma told her 'dad' as the man examined the shoulder wound she got during her fight with Miranda. Leonard couldn't help but smile as Marvick –and Scotty- fussed all over her. Both men rattled off a list of things that she needed to have repaired or replaced and Jemma just smiled and let them work. Leonard was pulled into an ambulance within earshot of his partner.

"This is gonna sting," the EMT said as he cleaned a wound on Leonard's face.

"That's okay," the detective sighed as his phone rang. He didn't even look at the caller ID before answering it. "You have reached Leonard McCoy, whatever you want, I don't care."

"That is _not_ your voicemail message," Jemma said. He looked over at her and he could see the side of her face lit up.

"You're sneaky," he chuckled.

"How do you think I talked to you on the phone when I lived at the precinct? I only talk out loud when you're around," she told him. "I wish they'd let me ride with you."

"You gotta get patched up. I'll be fine. Uhura's coming with me," Leonard said just as the beautiful detective hopped into the back of the ambulance.

"That Jemma?" Uhura asked. He gave her a nod and she reached for his phone. Leonard handed it over. "I'll take good care of him, Jems. I promise." There was a pause. "Okay. Love you too."

"Wait… what?" Leonard asked.

"I love all my friends," Uhura said as she handed him his phone and kissed the top of his head. "Even you."

"You hear this, Jem? I'm telling Scotty that she's flirting with me," he chuckled, then groaned as the ambulance pulled away from the building and jostled his ribs.

"Why would you do that? Flirting with Uhura makes the world go round," Jemma chuckled.

"I swear, you two are gonna give me gray hair," Leonard smiled.

"Probably," both women said at the same time.

* * *

"I hate this," Leonard groaned. Doctor put him on light duty because three of his ribs were actually broken, which means he has to take it easy for the next few weeks.

"You just don't want to miss the action," Uhura chuckled. He gave her a look. "That's not what's bothering you."

"Of course it's not. The XTK made the news."

"You think Jemma will be decommissioned again because of Miranda's rampage?" she asked.

"Stranger things have happened. She's supposed to see a judge in four hours but now with all the bombings… who knows when she'll… when her lawyer will get to fight for her independence." As Jemma is not legally considered a person, she can't actually argue her own case. It's a good thing his mother hired one of the best lawyers in the country.

"Leonard, nothing is gonna happen to Jemma. There's a whole precinct of cops ready to back her up if the brass even thinks about it. Besides, she saved Councilman Forrest's life, he owes her one."

"I wish it was that easy."

Uhura smiled, "It is. You let me and your mom and everybody else handle it and you go home and get some rest."

"That's easier said than done. Jemma's at Scotty's," he sighed. Leonard wasn't gonna say that it was hard for him to sleep without his girl, Uhura could probably see it written all over his face.

"You two are so cute," she chuckled. "She'll be home as soon as they let her leave and you know it." His friend had a point. "Come on. I'm gonna go sit with Stiles for a little while. I'm sure he won't mind the company if you wanna join me."

* * *

"Hey," Leonard mumbled. He didn't even open his eyes but he knew the hand he felt in his hair belonged to Jemma.

"You're a mess," she chuckled. When he came home, Leonard dropped into bed without removing anything except his gun.

"Probably. Don't care," he sighed and opened his eyes as he pulled her onto the bed. "That my jacket?"

"It was in your locker at the precinct. I hope you don't mind, my clothes were casualties of the last twenty-four hours."

"Why would I mind? Looks better on you," Leonard mumbled against her shoulder.

"We really should get up. Take showers, put on clean clothes, change the bedding since it's now covered in dust and blood and whatever else."

"You a germophobe and I didn't know it?"

"No. I just know what's all over you and I don't want you breathing it in, it's bad for your lungs."

"Darlin'…"

"Indulge me," she smiled.

"You're lucky I find this whole protective caretaker thing to be sexy," he chuckled.

"Go take a shower, Bones," Jemma rolled her eyes.

"Wanna join me?" he wiggled his eyebrows as he walked backwards towards the bathroom.

"Okay."

"Your los… wait. What?"

"You offered," she said quietly.

"I… I guess I did."

"You were just kidding, I won't hold you to it. It's been a really long day and I don't actually know what I'm… You know what, I'm just gonna change the bed. Go."

"Jemma, look at me," Leonard said as he knelt in front of where she was sitting on the bed. Her blue eyes flickered to his hazel and he could swear he saw fear. That's when he reminded himself of a very important fact. "You're a virgin."

"I guess. Is that even a term used for an android? I don't know how that is actually determined because, you know, robot. Not that it's not possible, bang bots and all but I'm not like them… I never... I've thought about it. More and more recently but… And it's not like I don't have access to tons of information and… I asked Chris if… to make sure it wasn't wiped from my memory or something but as far as he knows I've never…" Jemma rambled before she sighed and fell back on the bed. "Is it normal to be terrified?"

"Very. You wanna hear about my first time?"

"I don't know, do I?"

Leonard laughed, "It was funny."

"Funny?" she asked as she sat up.

"Girl I grew up with, Lily. We were at her house and though it took us a while, we managed to get going. So, here I'm thinking 'this is great' and everything, then her nine year old brother walked into the room. He screams 'stop hurting my sister.' Kid even punched me a few times before going to tell his mother that Lily was moaning in pain and I wouldn't stop hurting her."

"No way."

"Yes. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to go over to her house again," he chuckled. It didn't stop them from getting together a few times after that but nobody needed to know that.

"You would get cockblocked by a nine year old," Jemma laughed.

"It sucked at the time but now I can smile about it, so laugh it up all you want," Leonard smiled.

"I will."

"Smartass. I'm gonna go take a shower because I am gross. If you wanna join me you can but you don't have to."

"Okay," she said with a smile.

Leonard gave her a quick kiss and headed to the bathroom. He peeled his clothes off and considered burning the damn things before he stepped into the shower and turned the water on, grateful that it was already warm. Leonard stood directly under the spray and let the water rinse away most of the crap in his hair and on his face. He doesn't know how long he was standing there when he felt Jemma's hands on his back. Then her lips against his shoulder.

"Hi," she whispered against his skin.

"Hey, darlin'."

* * *

"Oh, my God. Both of you need to get dressed," Uhura said with a hand over her eyes.

"Hey, you're in my apartment, you can't comment on our lack of clothes. What do you want?" Leonard asked. Pike gave them the next few days off.

"I've been calling you for an hour, you need to get to the precinct. Your ex will only talk if it's to you. That's the one and only thing she said to the federal agents that tried to question her. And Jemma, I'm pissed at you," Uhura sighed.

"What did she do?" he asked when he noticed the smirk on Jemma's face.

"I blocked your incoming calls for a little while. I didn't want to be disturbed, sue me," Jemma chuckled. That explains why his phone never rang.

"You can tell me about the amazing sex after we deal with the crazy terrorist," Uhura smiled.

"Alright, alright. We'll meet you outside," Leonard told the other detective. "Nothing like dealing with a psycho ex to ruin a good mood."


	23. Chapter 23

"If you're just gonna stare at me, I can go. You wanted to talk to me, so talk," Leonard said.

"You changed your hair," Jocelyn… err, Pamela said.

"Actually, my mother kept it short while I was in my coma. I like it this way, so I decided not to grow it any longer. Is that what you wanted, to talk about my hair?" he asked before he made a move to get up.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't know that the plan was to kill you until it was too late. When the time came, I just followed my orders."

"Noted," Leonard sighed. "That it?"

"Don't be like that, Leo."

"Don't call me that. Family calls me that and you are not my family. I didn't even know your real name until last night."

"But…"

"If you're really sorry, you'll tell the federal agents outside everything they want to know. And you'll leave me alone. You, Phil, Section Thirty-one… you destroyed a part of my life and I'm rebuilding what's left. I don't want anything to do with you. I'm not even mad, I'm just done," he told her before walking to the door.

"I really did love you," she told him.

"No you didn't. You don't hurt people you love. You protect them," Leonard said before walking out of the room.

"You okay?" Chris asked.

"Peachy," he told his CO. Leonard had let go of all this crap with Jocelyn months ago, all that was left to do was find her and toss her in jail. Now that they've done that, he could finally wash his hands of Section Thirty-one. "Where's Jem?"

"Clearing you with IA. She gave them the footage of Phil's confession that you wouldn't join up with them. That, plus the dead body of a man who's supposed to be dead already…"

"Means they'll finally get off my case," Leonard sighed. "That's good. One less thing to worry about in court."

"Rescheduled to next week. You ready?" Chris asked.

"Are you?"

"I guess. I know more about Jemma than she does, I know she'll be fine."

"You ever gonna tell us what happened?" Leonard asked. The question about Jemma before her decommissioning has been lurking in the back of his mind since Chris told him about their history.

"She's not much different than she is now to be honest with you. Though, she blow a case once," his captain said. Leonard's eyes widened. "Not in the way you think but blew it none the less. I'll spare you the details but it came down to a choice: my life or catching our suspect."

"Jemma saved you," Leonard said. It wasn't a question, he's watched Jemma risk herself for him more than once and the idea that she'd do it for Chris wasn't even remotely surprising.

"She did. Six months of work went down the drain and the brass was pissed. They ordered her memory wiped and she was put in storage. Another cop would've gotten a medal for what she did but Jemma got tossed aside. Pissed me off to no end," Chris sighed. "The order to have her reactivated has been in my desk for years, I just needed the right person to partner her with. Someone just as special as she is."

"That would be you, Bonesy," Jemma said from behind them. "How'd it go with you-know-who?"

"About what I expected. It's outta my hands now," Leonard smiled. "Ready to go?"

"Nope. I'm gonna stick around and help out," she told him. He gave her a look. "As appealing as it is to stay home with you, this place is massively understaffed. We lost two officers because of Miranda, four because of Phil's people. Stiles is gonna be in the hospital for a while, you're out because of your ribs, there are three more on the medical duty roster. Uhura's sorting through evidence from three bombs, a crazy bot who attacked a councilman and a terrorist siege on a building. She could use the extra set of eyes."

"And that's why we love you," Chris chuckled.

"Mind if I stay, Captain. I'm not allowed in the field but I can at least do my paperwork," Leonard smiled.

"You hate paperwork," Jemma and Chris said at the same time.

"True but that doesn't mean I'm gonna leave it for Uhura," he chuckled.

"Go ahead," Chris smiled. "Makes my to-do list shorter."

Leonard and Jemma joined Uhura in the bullpen. He sat at his desk and started working on the paperwork from the last few days while Jemma sat at Stiles' desk and used his workstation to do her own paperwork. The three of them worked for hours in the first comfortable silence they've had in the last few days.

* * *

"You're both lucky I love you more than I hate suits," Leonard grumbled.

"Oh, please," his mother chuckled. "You look handsome in a suit. Doesn't he, Jemma?"

"Yes, ma'am, he does," Jem smiled as she fixed his tie before she whispered, "She made me wear a dress and heels. Shut up unless you wanna trade." Leonard smiled. Technically, his mother can't make Jemma do anything but the woman has this look that made puppy dog face look evil. Ellie McCoy can talk just about anyone into doing anything. So, when his mother brought Jem clothes to wear for court, Jemma just smiled and agreed.

"You look beautiful, if I do say so myself," he told his girl.

"You always say that," Jemma pointed out.

"I always mean it," Leonard said before he gave her a quick kiss. "Shall we?"

"I suppose," Jem sighed.

"Don't be nervous," his mother said, giving Jemma's shoulder a squeeze.

"Easy for you to say. You guys were born with rights," Jemma muttered. He didn't want to agree with her but she was right, they had an uphill battle with this one.

The ride to the courthouse was quiet. Leonard really didn't know what to say that would make Jemma any less worried. While she was considered property of the department, they had the power to make decisions for and about her without any regard to her thoughts or feelings on the matter. They could also order her memory wiped again, which didn't sit well with anybody.

"Look at all these people," his mother whispered before he parked the car.

"Go Uhura," Leonard whispered.

It looked like every cop the precinct could spare was there. Stiles was in a wheelchair being pushed by Chekov. Chris, Uhura, Scotty and Marvick were there too. None of that is what surprised him. Mitchell's family was there, Sulu's sisters too. He saw Paige and Jenna Archer from the Daystorm building and Ramon Medina's family. Carol Marcus, Nicole Bloomquist, Julian Kyle, Kira Larsen, Jeannie Hartman and her dad, Alyssa Ogawa and just about everybody else they've helped in the last eight months was there to back Jem up.

"Are all those people here for me?" Jemma asked from the backseat.

"Yes, they are, sweetie," his mother smiled before they all got out of the cruiser.

"You've been busy, Ny," Jemma said to their friend.

"I told you we had your back," the detective smiled before the pair gave each other a hug. "You ready?"

Jemma smiled, "I think so."

* * *

"JTK-seventeen-oh-one, what are you?" the lawyer for the city asked. Everyone watched Jemma's jaw tighten at being referred to by her unit number instead of her name.

"My name is Jemma. And I'm an android," she answered.

"Which is?" the man asked her.

"Derived from the Greek androeidēs, which translates to manlike, an android as an automaton made to resemble a human being," Jemma told everyone.

"Automaton," the man said. "Made. By whom?"

"My father," she smiled. "Doctor Lawrence Marvick."

"Isn't he the robotics expert responsible for the creation of the XTK robot that…?"

"You mean to tell me that all the children in the world are perfect?" Jem cut him off. "If that were true, seventy-three percent of the people in this room would be out of a job. He created Miranda, but as you can see, I'm not like her."

The lawyer glanced at his notes on the table, "JTK-seventeen-oh-one, what is the capacity of your memory, and how fast can you access information?"

"I have remote access to a cloud, this causes a variance in my memory capability. My computing power is thirty-two billion trilihertz," she told him. "Eighteen less than the VX series."

"Drawing on the log record of the construction of the GSKs, also constructed by Doctor Marvick, I request to be allowed to remove JTK seventeen-oh-one's hand for your inspection," the man told Judge Riker.

"Proceed," the judge said.

"I can't," Jemma said, the fear on her face was plain as day. It was a good thing his mother and Chris held onto him because Leonard was half a second from punching that asshole. "My limbs are not detachable without an engineer to remove them and it takes a while. Much like your limbs can't be detached without a doctor cutting them off."

"Nothing further, your honor, but I reserve the right to recall this witness," the man said.

"Very well, Mister Stone," the judge said. "Mister Decker, your witness."

"Jemma," Decker smiled. "That's a pretty name. Did you choose it yourself?"

"No. Captain Pike gave me my name when I was initially activated, he refused to call me by unit number. Most of my memories have been wiped from that time but that one is part of my identity matrix," Jemma smiled.

"Are you a machine?" Decker asked.

"I am. I don't deny it, I just find it irrelevant," she answered.

"Why?"

"Humans are machines too, just of a different type. Your bodies are made of pieces that can be replaced if damaged. Limbs, organs, blood. If something doesn't work correctly, the whole system can be thrown outta whack," Jem said. "And we were all created by another human. Children are created from their parents' DNA. They're not property."

"What's this?" Decker asked, holding up a painting.

"It's a painting of Atlanta's downtown skyline," she smiled.

"Objection. Relevance?" Stone said.

"Getting there, your honor," Decker said.

"Overruled," Riker said.

"Who painted this?" Decker asked Jemma.

"I did. It was a gift for my partner's birthday. He gets homesick, I thought it would help," Jemma told him. Leonard smiled. She blamed him for all painting and he let her, she was really good at it.

"And this one?" Decker switched paintings to one Leonard hadn't seen before. It was a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes running through a cornfield.

"That's how I imagine my childhood. I picked a farm town out in the middle of Iowa," she smiled.

"You imagine things?" Decker asked as he sat the painting on the table.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"We do. Why do you keep that painting?" Decker asked.

"I like it," Jemma shrugged.

"What's this?" Decker held up an actual book.

"A Tale of Two Cities," she smiled. "I borrowed it from Captain Pike but he told me that I could keep it. It's my favorite book."

"And this?" Decker held up a picture of Jemma and Uhura. "You only have this one picture at your apartment.

"My first girls' day out. I kept it because Detective Uhura is like my big sister," Jemma smiled at Ny. "I love her."

"Just her?"

"No. Chris. Larry. Scotty. Leonard. Ellie. Stiles. They're my family," she said. The look on her face was one you'd expect to see on any person who loved and cared about their family. There were happy tears in her eyes as she looked at them.

"What do you think about all this?" Decker asked. Everyone that testified, and there were a lot of them, had been asked this question but Jemma's opinion was really the only one that mattered.

"It's silly. To be considered sentient, one must be intelligent, self-aware and conscious. There are humans who are born lacking one of the three. We all know someone who isn't smart. We've all heard of those who aren't aware of themselves. And anyone in a coma lacks consciousness. Yet, they all have rights that I don't. Nobody asks any of you to prove that you're sentient, it's just assumed that you are, even though some people clearly aren't. I'm intelligent, I'm aware and I'm conscious, that should be enough for me to have the right to myself just like any other person because I am just that. A person."

* * *

"JTK-seventeen-oh-one is the physical representation of a dream, an idea conceived of by the mind of a man. It's purpose is to serve the needs of the police department. It's a collection of networks and algorithms, responses dictated by an elaborate software program written by a man. Its hardware built by a man. And now. And now a man will shut it off," Stone said before activating a local EMP next to Jemma's head and shut her off. He was in for a surprise. "Pinocchio is broken. The strings, cut."

"I hate when people do that," Jemma muttered as she rebooted. Everyone who wasn't already looking at her, was looking now. The expression on Stone's face was priceless. "That's worse than getting shot."

"Your honor, you've heard testimony from dozens of people who Jemma has helped. You've heard from the people she works with. Heard from those who are quick to call her their sister regardless of her physical make up. All of them asking the same question; why do the criminals that Jemma puts away have more rights than she does? The GSKs and JTKs were subject to the difficult job of being police officers, but unlike their human counterparts, they spent their nights in a dark charging station," Decker put up a hologram of the charging area, "where they weren't even afforded basic privacy. They weren't granted access to a mental health professional. And people treated them as if they were less than." He took a breath. "No one thought about their welfare or their feelings. We had a whole generation of disposable people. Society has a word for that: slavery. Jemma is a slave. If you think I'm being harsh, I'm not. I'm being honest. We've obscured it behind a comfortable euphemism: property. Are you prepared to condemn Jemma and others like her to an existence of servitude and slavery? Look at this woman. The brave police officer who risked herself for two dozen strangers in a hostage situation, single handedly. A woman who nearly lost her life to save her partner. A woman who gives tours of the precinct to school children. Who sings old rock songs in the car and likes action movies. A woman who loves the people around her with her whole being. Are you prepared to tell her that her life doesn't matter?" With that Decker sat down.

* * *

"Breathe, Jem," Leonard told her.

"Is it supposed to take this long?" Chekov muttered.

"I don't know, laddie," Scotty said, he was just as worried as Jemma.

"The judge is making the best decision his can make. That takes time," Uhura told them.

"It's not that hard," Stiles said. "She's one of the best people I know. Hell, she's one of the best people that we all know."

"Look at that, John has a heart," Jemma quipped.

"Don't tell anybody," the –temporarily- wheelchair bound detective told her just as Decker walked over to them.

"Judge is ready to rule," the lawyer informed them.

"Alright, people, let's do this," Chris said before giving Jemma a kiss on the cheek. "Whatever happens, you still got us. And I'm sure McCoy would smuggle you outta the country if he had to."

"That's not a bad idea," Leonard chuckled as they walked back into the courtroom.

"We'll see," Jemma smiled.

After everyone was settled, the judge came in. He looked over the room after he sat down. "This case has dealt with metaphysics, with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I'm neither competent nor qualified to answer those. Is Jemma a machine? Yes. Is she the property of the city and the SFPD? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue. Does Jemma have a real soul? I don't know what she has any more than I know what Mister Stone or Mister Decker has. But I have to give her the freedom to explore that question herself. It is the ruling of this court that Detective Jemma, unit number JTK-seventeen-oh-one, is hereby granted the rights and privileges of a human being. Good luck, young lady."

"Thank you, your honor," Jemma replied to the judge.

"This court is adjourned," the judge hit his gavel and that was it. Jemma had rights just like everyone else.

* * *

"Please tell me that my limited duty is ending early," Leonard said when Chris called him, Jemma and the others into his office the week after the trial.

"I doubt we're that special," Stiles, who was out of the chair but using a cane, said.

"You're not, I am," Leonard smirked.

"This isn't about either of you," Uhura chuckled.

"As usual, Uhura gets the gold star," Pike smiled before he tossed something at Jemma, which she easily caught. "Welcome to being one of us."

"Oh my…" Jemma said giving their CO a tight hug. She turned to look at them and opened the small leather wallet to reveal her badge and new department ID. "Not bad for a bot, huh?"

Leonard smiled, "Not at all, Detective Kirk."


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some time jumps in here but only one's really noticeable.

"You mind if I ask you something?" Leonard asked at Jem, who was sprawled across his chest.

"Go for it."

"Why'd you pick that name?" Ever since he heard it, he was curious and never had the chance to ask.

"Technically, I didn't. Do you know what JTK stands for?" she asked.

"No. I just thought it was random."

"It's not. Larry had a best friend in college, George Samuel Kirk. One day, while the GSKs were still in development, George and his family were killed in a car accident."

"The GSKs are named after Larry's friend," he said.

"Actually, they're named after his son, George junior. The JTKs were named after George's daughter, Jennifer Teresa Kirk. I took their name in tribute to Larry's friend: Jemma Tera Kirk. I think my siblings might take the name too." The other two JTKs and a handful of GSKs all filed for their independence from the system too.

"I like that you have a whole name. Hearing people call you Detective Jemma was a little weird."

"Well, we don't have to worry about that anymore," she smiled as she pushed herself up and pulled her shirt over her head. "I'm going for a swim, you comin?"

"Swimming in the clear blue water with you? Like I'd turn that down," Leonard chuckled. He was gonna have to thank his mother and Uhura for the assortment of bikinis that were in Jemma's luggage.

He was technically still on limited duty, so he decided to take some of his well-earned vacation days. His mother, the sneaky creature that she is, packed him a bag and two for Jemma, since she has to charge, before sending the pair to a resort in Bora Bora. They were staying in a bungalow over the water on the southern beach of the island of To'opua. Leonard's almost sure that the ink on Jem's passport isn't even dry yet.

His mind drifted to the giddy look on Jemma's face when the hard copies of the documents proving her status as a person were hand-delivered to the precinct by one of Councilman Forrest's aides. Birth certificate, social security card, driver's license, passport and even a weapons permit. His girl smiled bright and rattled off all the things she could do now like vote, own property or get married. That last one caught his attention.

It wasn't like he'd never thought about one day just settling down with Jemma somewhere, he just didn't know that she thought about it at all. The truth was that he would age, get older and probably die, Jemma was gonna be around a lot longer than him and Leonard wasn't sold on the idea of her watching him die. He knew it would break that beautiful spirit of hers. There was also that whole 'married couples can't be partners' thing. If they got married, it would have to wait until one of them stopped being a cop. Unwedded bliss would have to do for a while.

"Stop thinking and get in the water," she called from somewhere under the balcony where he had moved to watch her swim, he got a little distracted by his thoughts.

"Yes, ma'am," he chuckled before he jumped off the lower platform and into the water.

"Hi," Jemma swam over to him and pulled him into a lingering kiss.

"Hello, darlin'."

"I have a secret," she whispered against his lips.

"Oh, yea?"

"Yea. Except I'm pretty sure it's not a secret."

"Why don't you tell me what it is and I'll tell you if it's a secret or not," Leonard smiled.

"I love you."

"That's your secret?" he asked. Jemma nodded. "Not a secret but a very welcome thing to hear. I love you too."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Yep. It's written all over your face when you look at me. It would be obvious to everyone at work if it wasn't for the scowl you adopt at the precinct."

Leonard smiled, "Well, I can't let them in on all my secrets."

* * *

"Detective, there's someone here to see you," the desk sergeant said as Leonard and Jemma walked into the precinct for their first full shift back.

"Where?" Leonard asked.

"Uh, I was actually talking to Kirk," the sergeant chuckled. "He's waiting by your desks."

"Thanks," Jemma said with a smile. They walked over to the bullpen. "Can I help you?"

"You already did?" the man smiled.

"Gregory," Jemma smiled before giving the tall blonde man a hug. "You changed your eyes and your jaw."

"I'm not the only one, you should see our sisters. Jamie's eyes are lighter and she cut her hair, it's chin-length. Jessica's hair is black as night and her eyes as green as grass. You guys still look alike, but barely," Gregory chuckled.

"Bones, this is Gregory…"

"Kirk. Most of us went with Kirk too," the man said.

Leonard realized who he was, "You're one of the GSKs?"

"Yes. You've seen me before, at the hospital," Gregory smiled. He was the GSK they saw during the Crusher heart thing. Leonard could see the changes in his features, which made sense. They wanted to be independent, which includes a say over what they look like. "After Jemma won her case, it was a little easier for us to win ours. Got my official paperwork yesterday and had to come thank the kid."

"Kid?" Jemma asked her brother.

"I was born first, so yea," Gregory told her. "I can't thank you enough, Jemma."

"Don't thank me. It was his mother's doing," Jem chuckled.

"Well, thank her too," Gregory smiled. "I gotta get to work, I just wanted to say thanks."

She smiled, "Anytime. You need anything…"

"I'll let you know, sis," Gregory gave her a hug before reaching over to shake Leonard's hand. "Take care of her, Detective."

"Always," Leonard smiled. Gregory gave them both a smile before he left the precinct. "I have a feeling that your family is gonna get a lot bigger."

"Not just mine," Jemma said before looking at Uhura. "Something you wanna tell us, Ny?"

"You know?" Uhura asked with wide eyes. "Of course you know. He said you'd notice first."

"He who?" Leonard asked.

"Notice what?" Stiles added on as he walked down the short flight of stairs. When nobody answered him, he looked at Leonard. "What are they talking about, McCoy?"

"No clue," Leonard chuckled. "Ladies?"

"You wanna tell them, or should I?" Jemma asked. Uhura looked around the bullpen before she made a circular motion over her abdomen. Leonard and Stiles looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Things that grow, gentlemen."

"You're…?" Leonard said, not saying the word pregnant out loud.

"Yes," Uhura said. "But shhh. Other than Scotty, obviously, Pike and you guys, nobody knows yet. I'd like to keep it that way for a while."

"No arguments from us," Stiles chuckled. "Can I…?" He opened his arms and Uhura stepped into them.

"You guys too," Uhura said. Jemma and Leonard joined the hug and that's how Chris found them.

"Okay, you big softies, we got work to do. We have a hacked smart house and a dead couple. Kirk and McCoy, you're up."

* * *

"Well, that only happens in my wildest dreams," an unfamiliar voice said behind Leonard at the end of another long shift. The detective looked around before he spotted Jemma and Uhura in Pike's office, Ny with her head in Jem's lap. They had a trying day and their mama-to-be was exhausted. Jemma was just in her protective sister –and aunt- mode.

"They're detectives and it's not what it looks like," Stiles said as he stood up and did his best to intimidate the tall man with the British accent. "Who are you?"

"Detective John Harrison. I'm the new transfer," the man said.

"Temporary," Stiles and Leonard said at the same time.

"Be nice, fellas," Uhura told them as she and Jemma walked into the bullpen, his friend's baby bump becoming more obvious over the last couple of months. Leonard opened his mouth but Jemma beat it to them.

"You do know who you're talking to, right?" his girl asked with a smirk.

"True enough," Ny chuckled. "I'm Nyota Uhura. This is Jemma Kirk, Leonard McCoy and John Stiles. Welcome to the craziness."

"Thank you. You wouldn't happen to know where my desk is, would you," Harrison said. The four detectives burst into laughter.

"Good luck with that," Jemma chuckled. "I've been here a year and I don't have a desk yet."

"Really?" Harrison asked them.

Chris came down the steps, "No, they're just messing with you."

"Are we?" Jemma asked.

"Yes, you are, you evil person," Pike chuckled. Jemma was kidding, her desk was across from Leonard's.

"But Chris," Jemma and Uhura said at the same time.

"Children, you're all children," Chris said.

"Uh… I've never been a child, so…" Jemma pointed out.

"You're an android?" Harrison gave her a look.

"Yes," Jemma smiled and did a little disco face. Leonard had to push away the knowledge that his fingers on her skin makes the lights come to life all over her body, it was not the time for that thought. Jemma gave him a wink, of course she knew what he was thinking. "Nothing this pretty could be real."

"Amen to that, sister," Uhura said before the two women fist-bumped. Harrison looked at Uhura. "I'm a chrome…" she trailed off. "So are you. Wow, I never thought I'd ever meet another chrome on the job."

"My family was not happy," Harrison said.

"Join the club," Uhura chuckled. "Really, though, welcome. You'll be taking over for me in the field since I'm on light and limited duty. These guys are crazy and they'll bust your chops but they're the best cops you ever have the honor of working with."

"I'm not crazy," Jemma whispered.

"A little bit, sweetie," Uhura smiled. "It's why I love you."

"Aww, you boys hear that? She loves me best," Jemma smiled.

"She loves Scotty best," Leonard reminded her.

"Nope," both women said. "Sisters."

* * *

"Move in with me."

"What?" Jemma asked.

"I know you heard me," Leonard said. "You should just move in with me."

"I thought I already lived here?" Jemma asked as she disentangled herself from him and sat up on the bed. "I mean, my apartment is more like storage and a chick cave at this point."

"Chick cave, really?"

"Yea, really. The only time I'm over there, it's to paint or read or play the guitar or get a fast charge while you're sleeping. Most of my clothes have found their way over here. Half the stuff in the bathroom belongs to me… which is crazy because other than the shower I don't actually need a bathroom. I even clean up after you, which I don't mind nearly as much as I should. Face it, you're asking now but I've been living here for a while."

"Huh... I guess you have. Maybe we should reorganize a little so this place is more of a mix instead of just my stuff."

"We can… later."

"Later?" he smiled as she crawled up the bed and pressed a kiss against his jaw.

"Mm hmm. Much _much_ later."

* * *

"Move, move," Jemma called as the pair ran past the idiots lingering. Harrison and Stiles right behind them. The whole group skidded to a stop when they reached their destination.

"Where's Scotty?" Leonard asked Pike, who was there waiting for them. Their CO pointed behind them just as the Scot walked out of a hospital room with a little bundle in his arms.

They were conducting a raid when Uhura went into labor as few weeks early. After they got their bad guys, they went straight to the hospital. Luckily, Gregory gave Jemma updates the whole time and it's the only reason they weren't worried outta their minds.

"Hey, lass, lads. I want ye to meet Estelle Jemma Scott," their friend said. The little girl in his arms snuggled against his chest.

"She's beautiful," Jemma whispered. That was an understatement, the baby looked like her mother with a drop of her dad in the mix. "Can I…?" Scotty smiled and carefully transferred the little girl into Jemma's arms after the detective pulled off her jacket. "Hey, little star. That's what your name means: star. I'm your Aunt Jemma and I'm gonna make sure your dad doesn't go crazy teaching you everything. And listen when you get mad at your parents. Most importantly, I'm gonna love you forever."

"You know what this means, McCoy," Stiles whispered.

"You do know that she can't have kids?" Leonard whispered back.

"You think for one instance that'll stop your mother?" Chris asked. "Your DNA, plus a donor with similar features to Jemma's and you got yourselves a…"

"Chrome," Leonard chuckled. "We've already had this talk. We don't want any kids of our own. We haven't ruled out adoption… one day."

* * *

"Why do you like this noddle bar so much?" Jemma asked.

"Good noodles," he shrugged. "Wanna try 'em?"

"Sure," she smiled before eating the bite he had on his chopsticks. "Those are yummy."

"You want the real answer though," Leonard said. She gave him a nod. They had such a good read on each other it was almost like they were in each other's heads. His eyes glanced over at the Recollectionist's place, somewhere he hasn't been a long time. "When you pulled me out of there… I'd been clinging to a life that was long gone. One that, I didn't know at the time, wasn't real. I'd given up on being remotely normal, killing myself to find the people I lost. Then, there you were, this creature I didn't fully understand. You had no real reason to come after me but you did, I didn't buy the line you gave me about being your last chance to be a cop, still don't."

"Only half true."

"I know. Thing is, I needed to hear that. I needed to hear that someone needed me. I needed someone to need me, it's the only thing I've ever been good with. With my coma and my leg, everyone but Chris treated me like I was gonna fall apart and you… you tossed my crap right back at me like it was nothing. You argued with me and took care of me and called me out. I never thanked you for any of it."

"You don't need to," Jemma smiled.

"I know. Still might one of these days. The point I was trying to make… this is the noodle bar from that night when I yelled at you and you still tracked me down and pulled my stubborn ass outta the Recollectionist's chair. You were so pissed at me that I could feel it but you were also worried and I could see it in your features. That was the moment I knew I could trust you. That moment started all this; us as partners, us as a couple… all of it."

"Bones…"

"I don't know where I'd be right now if it wasn't for you. I don't know if I'd still do this job without you," he told her. "I wake up in the morning and I know that everything's right in my world when I look at you. That started here."

"You're such a sap sometimes."

"And you love it."

"Of course I do," she chuckled. "I'm glad I pulled you outta that chair too, Bonesy."

"I…

"… _One-nine, robbery in progress on West Fifty-Fifth Street_ ," his phone buzzed, " _All available units respond_."

Leonard and Jemma looked at each other. He gave his girl a nod and her face lit up, "Already done."

"Let's go catch us some bad guys, darlin'."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the show must go on. Except it didn't, which makes me sad. On the plus side, I watched a lot of Karl Urban stuff writing this and that's always a good thing. It was fun playing around with this one, I may revisit them someday, we'll see.
> 
> Happy Holidays!


	25. The John Harrison Chapters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newest member of the team finds himself in a sticky situation and questions his place with Leonard, Jemma, Chris and Co.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of these I'm going to do, I was watching the episode of Almost Human that this is based off of and thought it would be an interesting situation to insert Harrison into. In the episode, Detective Stahl is part of the team and she's Kennex and Dorian's friend but in my story, Harrison's just the new guy.

"Why me?" a familiar voice asked from behind him.

"I beg your pardon," John said as he looked at Detective Kirk.

"Crazy clones hold a gun to your head and tell you call one person. Of all the people in this unit and the department that you could've called, you picked me. Why?"

He smiled, "Because I knew that if anyone in this place would try to save me, it would be you."

* * *

_Eight Hours Ago_

* * *

John hates this. They had a dead cop, one dead witness, one missing witness and, as usual, he was cleaning up pieces of a destroyed VX. It wasn't that he was too good for the job, it was just a waste of his talents. He was an intelligence expert and this was a job that just about anyone could do. Being new to the unit, John didn't expect to be welcome with open arms but he also didn't expect to have to start over from scratch.

Given what he knows about Captain Pike and the team he put together, their unit was one of second chances. There was McCoy, the disgraced detective who spent a year and a half in a coma after a raid he led got ambushed and almost everyone was killed. Stiles, the former Vice detective with the bad attitude and the short fuse. Uhura, the chrome who no one wanted to work with because she's 'perfect'. And Kirk, the humanistic android Pike pulled out of storage despite the board's recommendation because she's a good cop. Like them, all John wanted was a chance to use his skills to do good work, keep the bad guys off the streets and help the good people of this city stay safe. Was that too much to ask?"

"Jem found the missing girl. She's keeping her safe," McCoy said as he walked into the hallway.

"Kirk has a knack for protecting people," John chuckled.

"That she does," McCoy smiled.

The expression looked good on the man who was repeatedly described to John as being mad, grumpy and difficult to work with. It only took about a minute to understand that Leonard McCoy had a right to his anger, his former partner faked his death and turned out to be a terrorist. Along with McCoy's ex-girlfriend, his old partner ruined what was, by all accounts, a happy life. From what John's observed, a lot of McCoy's recent happiness comes from his life with Kirk.

The android with a soul and better instincts than half the officers on the force, Jemma Kirk was a cop's cop. She was tough but fair and compassionate, a mix of by-the-book and off-the-book depending on the situation. Most importantly, she treated everyone from poorest people in the city to the wealthiest like they mattered. It's easy to see why Pike trusts her and McCoy loves her so much.

"We get anything in there?" John asked, pulling himself back on topic.

"It was a single shooter, entered by force, discharged a large-caliber weapon, took out the bailiff first, then shot and killed Haley Myers. No DNA. No prints. Armor-piercing rounds."

"Most likely purchased on the black market, so we have no way to trace them. Do we have any idea how the shooter found the safe house?" John asked.

"Yea, we found this tracker on the bailiff," McCoy said, holding up an evidence back with a small clear disc inside. "Someone must've figured out he was on the protection detail."

"And followed him here," John sighed as he examined the device.

"Morbid, making your VX hold the bin, isn't it?"

"He can handle it," John answered quickly before he realized why McCoy asked the question. "Unlike your partner, mine has no feelings one way or the other. For example, I would never ask Kirk to hold the bin. That would be cruel. We're collecting these pieces for Scotty, hopefully he can get something from the CPU."

"The Giants just scored. The score is now two to one," John's VX alerted him.

"Hey, whoa whoa, buddy, stop," McCoy said. "I'm recording that. Me and Jemma are gonna watch it after shift."

"Oh, sorry. He's been updating me," John told the other man.

"I didn't know you were a baseball fan," McCoy said, genuine surprise on his face.

"You never asked."

* * *

"So, this Vaughn girl had the Cerebellux procedure?" Stiles asked.

"It's relatively new and unproven. It's meant to increase percentage of brain usage in human beings. Enhancements have been known to add sensory abilities or a notable increase in intelligence. Similar to, but not the same as, the enhancements tailored to chromes," Kirk said from her usual spot; next to McCoy, leaning against his desk.

"When Maya touches an item that belongs to a deceased person, she can hear them from the great beyond," McCoy added.

"That's insane," Stiles said.

"Is it?" Kirk asked. "We live in a world with genetically modified perfection," she made a motion in John's direction, "and people made out of silicon and carbon fiber." She pointed at herself. "Given everything we've seen in the last… year, is it really so crazy that she can talk to dead people?"

"Kirk has a point," John sighed, glancing at Stiles. "The problem is proving it. Arik Soong was sitting in a courtroom across town with Pike four feet away from him. Even if Maya says that Haley saw his face, that's bloody impossible."

"Nothing's impossible. Jemma download this," Scotty said as he walked into the bullpen and tapped something into one of the computers on Kirk's desk. "Sorry to interrupt but you guys are gonna want to hear what I found. We all know that facial replication technology exists, DNA can be fabricated, fingerprints can be planted."

"Yea," Stiles said, looking at the engineer. "Your point?"

"The human vocal chords can't be faked. Recorded, yes. Duplicated, yes. And to the human ear, they can seem identical. However, if an auditory specialist, such as myself, tirelessly analyzes the audio print, it is possible to discern whether or not a voice is a recording or as in this case, organic," Scotty said.

"Anybody get that?" Stiles asked.

"I did," John said. "There are nearly undetectable differences between our voices when they're live as opposed to being recorded."

Scotty nodded, "Thank you, my friend. I pulled some audio from the hologram testimony and picked out a voice from the safe house."

"The killer's voice," Kirk said, the lights under her skin slowing to a stop.

"Jemma, if you'd be so kind," Scotty said.

" _Where's the other one_?" the recording played and the small group looked at each other.

"That voice is one hundred percent real, coming directly from vocal chords," Kirk told them and Scotty nodded.

"Which means that whoever was saying this was actually in the room with the witnesses and fired that gun," McCoy said. "We're not going to like this are we?"

"It's a match to Arik Soong," Kirk told them.

"What about an identical twin? That would explain why someone with his voice killed the witness and the bailiff," John said.

"No," Pike said as he walked into the room. "We checked that out. Soong's an only child."

"Narcissistic, sociopathic…" John muttered. "What if this person's not a twin but a copy?"

"You think he cloned himself?" Kirk asked, the lights in her face coming to life again.

"No, we checked with the Anti-Replication guys," McCoy said, looking at his partner. "Avery said there's no case file on Soong."

"Oh, come on, those ARD guys are so backlogged. We'd be idiots to trust their records," she told them.

"Hello, people cloning is bloody complex. Unless Soong had a secret PhD in biogenetics, he wouldn't have the skills," Scotty pointed out.

"We did a thorough background on Soong. If he was harboring a clone, we would've found evidence," Pike added.

"Doctor Fuller was a fertility specialist. I'm checking his available files," Kirk said.

"There was never a motive we could find," John added to the android's thought. "But cloning is a reproductive technology. What if that's a connection we missed?"

"Let's find out. Good job, guys," Pike told them before he walked away.

"Is he going to be okay?" Scotty asked.

"This case was always hard on him," Kirk said with an unnecessary sigh. "He'll be alright, he just needs us to do our jobs and find out who killed his witness."

"I'm worried about him," McCoy said.

Kirk sighed, "We all are."

* * *

"Misses Jones, I wanted to ask you a few questions about Liam Fuller. You knew him, didn't you?"

"Yes," the woman sitting across from John said. "I hadn't seen him in many years before he died. Is that what this is about?"

"In a manner of speaking," John told her. "I found an article by Doctor Fuller that was published twenty-two years ago on stem cell cloning. You were his research assistant."

"I was. It was a lifetime ago. When they passed legislation banning cloning, research funding dried up overnight. Doctor Fuller had to give up that work and refocus his career."

"By any chance do you recall an Arik Soong taking part in that study?" he asked.

"I wouldn't know," she sighed. "The subjects were anonymous."

"I've looked for more of his work on cloning, but I haven't been able to find anything," John said.

"We worked a lot out of his mother's house. If his old research still exists, you might try looking there."

* * *

"Hello?" John knocked on the door. Nothing. "We should take a look inside."

"Do we have probable cause, Detective Harrison?" his VX asked.

"Yes, I'm worried about Misses Fuller's health. She's of advanced age," John said.

"Yes, Detective," the VX said before popping the lock. "I'll notify the precinct of our location."

"Anybody home? Misses Fuller?" John called out as he walked into the house. "Clear the upstairs."

John looked around before he found an office. He attached storage device to the computer activated a bunch of windows on the screens. Genetics reports, incubation and growth data, photographs. He also found a letter from Fuller to Soong, threatening to expose the experiment and the clones. "There's our motive."

"The second floor is clear," his VX said as it stepped into the room.

"Send this and all the files on this computer to Captain Pike immediately," John ordered before he decided to look around the house. He made his way down to the basement and found four beds. It looked like the clones had been staying in this house at some point since Fuller was killed. There was a thud above his head.

John drew his gun and went to find his VX. The android was on the floor, his head in pieces. John spun when he heard footsteps behind him. "Police. Stop right there."

It was no use. The gun was knocked out of his hands from someone on his right and he was hit in the head by someone on his left. After that, everything went black.

* * *

"Wakey, wakey, cop," someone said. John registered a few things as he came to. One, his head hurt. Two, he was handcuffed. Three, Arik Soong did have clones and they were holding him hostage. "Here's how this is gonna go. You're gonna give me a name and we're gonna call that person to talk about getting you out of here and getting Arik home. Pick fast."

John had to think about it for a moment before he decided, "Detective Jemma Kirk."

"Okay," the clone that appeared to be in charge said, picking up John's phone and calling Kirk. He was nice enough to put the call on speaker.

"Hey, Harrison, listen to me. You got to get out of there," Kirk's voice filled the room.

"You must be someone very special," the lead clone said. You could almost hear a pin drop on the other end of the call.

"Who is this?" Kirk asked.

"I think you know. Of all the people he could have contacted when his life depended on it, he chose you, Detective Kirk," the clone told her.

"Let me speak to Detective Harrison," she said.

"That's not the way this works. You have someone I want, and clearly we have someone you want, so let's see how we can accommodate each other."

"You listen to me, you hurt him in any way…"

"I suggest you listen, Detective. I'm going to send you a set of coordinates. I want Arik Soong brought to that location in two hours. You will come in one car. If you bring reinforcements, we will know. If there are drones in the area, we will know. If we detect anything amiss, he's dead. And don't even try coming to this house. I know you know where we are," the clone ordered.

"You must be the smart one," Kirk deadpanned.

"We all are," Soong's clone told her. "You have two hours."

"They won't negotiate with you not even for me," John said as the call ended. "You're not gonna get what you want."

"I beg to differ. You heard her on the phone, you're important to her," the clone said. Sadly, he was right, Kirk had a soft spot for everyone on their team. It's what makes her who she is.

"I say we kill him anyway! They shot Allen!" one of the other clones said, putting a gun to John's temple.

"And they'll pay for it, but not right now. We have to get Arik back," the leader said. "We have to put the family back together."

"You're not a family," John told them. "You're trophies for a narcissist who's held you hostage your entire life. Why do this for him? Why kill innocent people for him?"

"Because he is us," the lead clone said. "How far would you go to save yourself, Detective?"

* * *

He couldn't believe they were really going to do this. He wasn't worth letting a murderer go. Especially since they had the man dead to rights. If anything, killing him would only make the case stronger. It's not that John was in a hurry to die, he was just willing to sacrifice himself so more people didn't have too. Soong and his clones had blood on their hands and it wasn't going to end if they let the man out.

"We're here," Kirk said from outside the fan. "It's just us, like you asked. Where's John?" The door slid open and one of the clones pulled him out.

"Get off of me," John growled. He looked at the Detective across from him, Kirk's usually exuberant expression was replaced by a coldness that he'd only ever observed once, when some attacked Pike at the precinct. She's pissed. No doubt a result of having to trade their prisoner for his life.

"You wanna go, we can go," the clone said.

"Take the cuffs off and fight fair," John told him. The clone gave him a look before he turned to face Kirk, who was more of a threat than John was at the moment.

"Where's Arik?" the clone on his other side asked. Jemma looked at her partner, who was also upset. McCoy went around the police transport vehicle for a moment before returning with Arik Soong and Captain Pike. The grim expression on his CO's face was enough to make John wish he was dead. All Pike's hard work putting Soong away and John destroyed it by being careless.

"It's him," the clone on the roof of the van confirmed.

John watched as Pike slowly led the criminal across the field. It was the longest few minutes of his life. That's when he noticed something odd. Kirk and McCoy sharing a look. Granted, they did that a lot. The silent communication between the partners and couple wasn't what he found odd, it was the look itself. They were up to something. He looked at Kirk who gave him a wink and he took that as his chance to make a break for it. John slammed his elbow into the face of the clone closest to him, breaking his nose.

"Harrison, down," Kirk called. He ducked just as she shot the clone on the van and McCoy shot the leader. Both detectives advanced, Kirk pulling John behind her as they did. McCoy kicked the weapons away from the downed clones before he gave Kirk a nod. "Chris, we got him. Scotty, shut that damn hologram off."

"Hologram?" John asked as McCoy cuffed the only surviving clone. Scotty jumped out of the transport van with a tablet in his hands. The engineer put in some commands and watched as Pike and Soong flickered before they disappeared.

"Yea, hologram. You didn't think we were really gonna give these idiots what they wanted, did you?" she looked up at him like he was an idiot.

"The thought crossed my mind," John told blonde as she uncuffed him.

"They messed with the wrong team for that. Remind me to tell you about the guy I electrocuted for putting a bomb around Bones' neck," Kirk smiled, reaching up to examine the cut on his face. It was an unnecessary gesture but he allowed her to fuss over him just the same. "You okay?"

"It's just a scratch," he chuckled.

"You ever scare us like that again and I'll give you a hell of a lot more than a scratch," she said as she pulled him into a hug. John wrapped his arms around her and let out the breath he'd been holding. They weren't mad about Soong, they were upset that the clones tried to leverage him for Soong's release. What's more, they were genuinely worried about him. John felt like a dumbass.

"Copy that, Miss Kirk."

* * *

_Current Time_

* * *

"You had no way to know that we'd come up with some craziness to find you," Kirk chuckled.

"Stranger things have happened around here," John smiled. "In the few months that I've been a part of this unit, I've learned that out of everyone, you have the most heart. It's what makes you special. So, gun to my head, you're the person I call."

"Anytime. Just please limit it to one hostage situation a week," she told him.

"Can do," he sighed.

"You catch the end of the game?"

"No. My VX lost it's head," John chuckled. "Sorry that was rude."

"And funny," Kirk smiled. "Me and Bones are gonna order a pizza and watch the game. You wanna come over, watch it with us?"

"I'd like that, Kirk."

"Jemma. If you're gonna watch baseball with me, you gotta call me Jemma."

"Yes, ma'am."


End file.
